Steamboats

     Riverboats have long been considered an icon of American success in the early phases of the industrial revolution (Buchanan 18). In this Currier and Ives print the telegraph, the locomotive, the steamboat, and the steam-engine powered printing press.

Currier and Ives - c1876 - Library of Congress

     The Steamboat Arabia Museum's website tells us that "longing for a fresh start, a generation of brave men and women traveled westward.  Certainly, immigrants to the western territories traveled on steamboats. Yet, so did soldiers, tradesmen and others that needed to move along the river. 

     Louis Hunter, in his classic Steamboats on the Western Rivers, says steamboats served as the bus routes of today. They docked wherever there were passengers or freight to pick-up or drop off (347).  Dave Hawley, in a conversation at the museum, compared the freight on the Arabia to the freight shipped by Fedex or UPS. The destination was stenciled on the box. The steamboat clerk, who kept track of the cargo, was not interested in the contents, just the recipient (D. Hawley Interview).  

     The military used steamboats to transport troops to western posts (Hunter 342-347). Fort Leavenworth was just up the Missouri River from Kansas City and had been operational since 1827. Slaves and American Indians traveled by steamboat, although "shipped" would be a more appropriate word. In fact, in 1853 the Arabia was making a run from Paducah, Kentucky to St. Louis when a young slave, who was moving wood, fell and drowned. We know this because there was a lawsuit to recover the worth of the slave (D. Hawley Treasures 74).

     There were passengers that fit into the "traveling in style" picture we have of steamboats. First class service was in well-furnished cabins and fine dining rooms. Known as "floating palaces," they were adorned with heavy gilt and gingerbread. These pictures tell the story:

Photo by author at Steamboat Arabia Museum

Photo by author at Steamboat Arabia Museum

Photo by Author at Steamboat Arabia Museum

Photo by author at Steamboat Arabia Museum

Photo by author at Steamboat Arabia Museum

Photo by author at Steamboat Arabia Museum

Photo by author at Steamboat Arabia Museum

     And then there were deck passengers whose inexpensive ticket entitled them to transportation and nothing much else. Deck passengers found their own space among the cargo, had to bring their own food and had little or no shelter from the weather. They usually shared the lower deck with the boat crew, the most dangerous place on the boat (Hunter 422-425). Exploding boilers were responsible for numerous tragedies (Hunter 132). Needless to say, slaves, sometimes in chains, American Indians, barge and keelboat workers returning upriver, were all deck passengers (Buchanan 86-87, Hunter 420). Disease also traveled on the steamboats. Cholera caused the death of three Arabia passengers in 1855 (G. Hawley 74). 

Greg Hawley relays a description of steamboat conditions contained in the Louisville Journal from May 21, 1849. Passengers are packed close together in filthy and smelly conditions with poor food all conducive to disease (51).

     Just as air travel does today, steamboat fares fluctuated during the year. The low water periods of late summer and early fall raised the rates (Lass Navigating 61). Although sources do not comment on Arabia fares on her last voyage, the drought that ran from 1854 to the early 1860's may have impacted Arabia's rates, as well as made her more susceptible to the lurking tree snags (Layzell 3).

Summary                

     The mid-1840s to the completion of the first trans-continental railroad in 1869 marked the height of Missouri River steamboating. With little competition prior to the Civil War, steamboats actually benefited from the railroads built east of the Mississippi. Passengers and freight tended to move by railroad as far as possible and then change to boats (Hunter 487, Kimball 8).

     By the mid-1850's there were about 60 steamboats plying the Missouri river (Bordewich).

Kathy Borgman, 2006 head of the Arrow Rock, Missouri, preservation group says 'The river was the I-70 of its day. "The whole world came through on the riverboats (Quoted in Bordewich)." The world, in all its diversity, passed along the Missouri River.