Great boats have great stories. Take my dad’s old Bass Tracker fishing boat from the ’90s, which went on a middle-of-the-night joy ride down the Black Warrior River below Tuscaloosa,… Read More
steamboat
A steamboat, the Mississippi River and moonshine. While it could be the premise of an adventure novel set during Prohibition in the 1920s and early 1930s, those three subjects are… Read More
Built in 1913 at Santa Rosa, Fla., the unique sidewheeler Julia Belle Swain was originally the Charles E. Cessna, named for a Chicago physician. The riverboat was designed to run… Read More
Taken 80 years ago, this week’s image for the Old Boat Column features the sidewheeler President. Originally built in 1924 for the Louisville & Cincinnati Packet Company as the Cincinnati,… Read More
Originally the pleasure steamboat Minnesota, this petite sternwheeler was a product of the Howard Shipyard at Jeffersonville, Ind. In the autumn of 1915, Edmonds J. Howard, proprietor of the famed… Read More
Built by the Ayer & Lord Marine Ways at Paducah, Ky., in 1918, the H.G. Hill was 165 feet long by 30 feet wide. The engines (12-inch cylinders with 6-foot… Read More
Of the 28 steamboats owned and operated by Greene Line Steamers, only one was a sidewheeler. The Greenland was built in 1903 by the Knox boatyard at Harmar (Marietta), Ohio. Read More
Named for a Cincinnati coal dealer, the Tom Dodsworth was built in 1871 at Pittsburgh by James A. Blackmore. Capt. George McCallam was the first master of the big sternwheeler,… Read More
Originally named Irene D, this former rafter was built in 1888 at Rock Island, Ill. It was constructed on a wooden hull that measured 133.5 feet in length by 29.6… Read More
Regarded as one of the most beautiful steamboats afloat, the Virginia made big news 109 years ago when it wandered out of the flooding Ohio River on the night of… Read More
