The Louisville skyline and riverfront.
comment from Alan Bates: The packet at the wharfboat is probably the Kentucky (since it is not the Queen City nor the John W. Hubbard) and the showboat is Menke's Hollywood. I'd say the photo was made in 1930, and was made from the Municipal Bridge (now the Clark Bridge).
Interesting form of a paddlewheel: narrow, but very high.
Judy Patsch added:
The boat is the VERNE SWAIN, the first. Midships the sign is: Clinton, Fulton, Lyons, Davenport and Rock Island. On the Engine Room bulkhead is: Daily Packet.
She was built by David Swain in the famous Swain Yard in Stillwater Minnesota in 1886. According to Way, #5551, she was 122x 22.6 x5. Engines were 12" and 24" cross compound. Locomotive boiler and fan blower. She was built for the Clinton-Davenport trade, which is 42 miles. Capt. John Streckfus(the Commodore) bought her in 1889 and ran that trade for a while. She was sold in 1900 and renamed SPEED. I know I've seen pix of her in that name too. Most literature has John Streckfus entering the boat business with the purchase of the FREDDIE in 1891. He used that boat to ferry supplies between RI and Andalusia. But he actually bought the VERNE SWAIN two years prior to the FREDDIE, thus the VS was Streckfus' first boat he owned. The Swain name lives on of course with the JULIA BELLE SWAIN. For you Ohio River people not too familiar with Upper Miss/St.Croix things, the Reflector June 1971 has a big article on the Swain boats.
Evansville riverfront.
Steamboat race on the Sacramento River on June 7th, 1935.
Interior from the City of Natchez.
the W.P, SNYDER with the famed VIP barge in tow rounding out of Wheeling, W. VA., on her last trip to Marietta, OH, 1955. Capt. Fred Way in charge.
picture delivered by: R. Dale Flick
The WINNIE MAE with fleet at Lock 10 Steubenville, September 10, 1965.
picture delivered by: R. Dale Flick
Str. TELL CITY (Way's Directory No: 5327) from artist Bill Reed's photo collection. Photographed at Marietta Ohio, but no date. Lost on Good Friday, April 6, 1917 when she hit the bear traps at Dam 19 Little Hocking, Ohio. Her classic pilothouse graces the grounds of the Ohio River Museum, Marietta.
picture delivered by: R. Dale Flick
The 'Fleet master' is pictured here on a conventional 'shantyboat' lashed to the big MARMET COAL barges on the Kentucky side of the Ohio River. MARMET CO., occupied space on both sides of the river. In the rear is the big stone water intake station. The gentleman to the right on the shantyboat is Jesse Cramer, family friend and neighbor in the old East End of Cincinnati. Note the oil lamp hanging on the bulkhead to the left of the other gentleman. This picture was taken between 1900 and 1903. Crew/work pictures are rare and outside of the usual 'romance' of packet steamboats. To the right of the shantyboat in the distance can be seen a steam pumpboat.
picture delivered by: R. Dale Flick
