Vicki Berger Erwin - Steamboat Disasters of the Lower Missouri River

Published by The History Press

Charleston, SC

www.historypress.com

Copyright 2020 by Vicki Berger Erwin and James Erwin

All rights reserved

Front cover, top: State Historical Society of Missouri; bottom: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

First published 2020

e-book edition 2020

ISBN 978.1.43966.911.2

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019951836

print edition ISBN 978.1.46714.325.7

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the authors or The History Press. The authors and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

There are many thanks due to various historical organizations and their people. Everyone at every historical museum and society was so very, very helpful and generous.

We were helped by so many people whom we would like to acknowledge by name. But we seem to have lost the scraps of paper with the chaotic scribbles with that information. We dont want to give some names and omit others. We hope that where we mention institutions and organizations, each individual who reads it will remember us, because we remember youjust not everyones name.

Missouri State Archives, Jefferson City, Missouri; State Historical Society of Missouri, Columbia, Missouria special thanks to staff and archivists who pulled folders for us and emailed photos to us in the middle of preparing for their move to a new facility; Washington Historical Society, Washington, Missouri; Gasconade County Historical Society Archives and Record Center, Hermann, Missouri; Lexington Historical Society, Lexington, Missouri; Roubideaux Row Museum, St. Joseph, Missourianother special thanks for the best tour ever by the young tour guides; Lafayette County Historical Society, Higginsville, Missouri; Arabia Steamboat Museum, Kansas City, Missouri; St. Charles County Historical Society, St. Charles, Missourieven without our notes, we remember our friends Louis J. Launer and Linda Prenger, who were so very helpful; Murphy Library Special Collections, University of WisconsinLa Crosse, La Crosse, Wisconsinand especially Laura M. Godden, who graciously plucked our tardy request for photos from the bottom of the pile to help us meet our deadlines; Mercantile Library, Herman T. Pott National Inland Waterway Library, University of MissouriSt. Louis; and the DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge and especially Dean Knudsen.

Thanks to Chad Rhoad at The History Press for putting up with our questions, and to Rick Delaney for his expert copyediting on not just this book but all our books he has improved.

INTRODUCTION

In the mid-1990s, Jim and I took a weekend trip to Hannibal, Missouri, where we stumbled upon a small, temporary exhibit of artifacts from an old steamboat that had been uncovered on a farm along the Missouri River. We were fascinated. Jim bought a map showing steamboat wrecks along one small section of the river, and it was hard to believe there were so many. We discussed writing a book about steamboat wrecks, but it wasnt the right time.

When a permanent museum opened in Kansas City, we visited it and learned even more about what we now knew was the steamboat Arabia. We were still intrigued and filed it away under books to write someday.

The day has finally come! And it was every bit as interesting to research steamboats and their disasters as we hoped it would be. So, thank you Arabia for setting us on this path. You might be interested to know that the first thing people ask us when we talk about writing a book about steamboat disasters is, Do you know about the Arabia?

We did expand the definition of disaster beyond wrecks. We include disease, fire, explosions, crimes, war and even ice. Our definition of the Lower Missouri River is somewhat expansive, too. St. Louis, a major Mississippi River port, had to be included, because it was the home for nearly all the steamboats plying the Missouri. We set the northern limit at DeSoto, Nebraska, because we wanted to bring in the Bertrand, the other Missouri River steamboat that was the subject of extensive excavation and archaeological study.

Distances by Water on the Lower Missouri from St. Louis to DeSoto, Nebraska (1869)

There were more than three hundred steamboat wrecks on the Missouri River in the period covered by this book. The stretch between the rivers mouth and Kansas City was considered a steamboat graveyard. Of course, we could not write about every wreck. We tried to pick the most interesting and important stories.

One of the problems we encountered in writing this book is that the early steamboat era doesnt have many photos of the boats. Today, if a boat sank on the river, we would have professional news photographs, amateur photos and pictures on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. We would be drowning in disaster photos. It wasnt as easy to snap a picture in the mid-1800s, and cameras were not nearly so common. We hope you enjoy the images we managed to find.

And a bit of advice: If you plan to write a book on the Missouri River, hope it is not a flood year! In 2019, while we were writing about steamboat disasters, there was a flood disaster occurring along the Missouri River. We were unable to reach some of the places we wanted to research, because they were closed or the roads leading to them were closed. We are sorry for the losses these areas and communities suffered.