Gasboat at Tell City

I will venture a guess as to the name of the boat. It has been more years than I can remember since I saw the boat down there in the weeds. The last time I saw it the cabins were still intact and the wooden pilot wheel was in the pilot house. I’ll admit way back then I was tempted to try to "liberate" the wheel but never got up the nerve to go aboard since I did not know who owned the thing. The Chickasaw was a paddle wheeler that moved stone from the Mulzer stone quarry at Derby, Indiana. I remember seeing her in operation when I was a kid back in the 50’-60’s while fishing on the riverbank. So my vote is for the Chickasaw.

I remember a large steel hull on the TC riverbank as early as 1959 or '60 that was lying faced "up the hill" at a right angle to the river. There was no cabin; just the rusting metal hull. Are we talking about the same thing?

The hull that is visible is fore and aft with the shore some 20' above pool stage...trees cover most of the remains during the summer months but you can make out the hull lines and bracing at stern with the wheel in place still sitting in the journals with a chain guard slumped over the shaft sprocket. It is located some 200' above the T.C. riverfront access park. It looks to be an old gasboat towboat long forgotten...Luke

The hull of the steam towboat EDITH NUGENT was on the bank at Tell City into the 1960's. When the BELLE OF LOUISVILLE stopped there while on a tramp trip, chief engineer Dave Crecelius "liberated" some Van Duzen syphons from the beached hull for use on the BELLE. The EDITH NUGENT (of Nugent Sand Company here in Louisville) was not a large sternwheel steamboat and was dismantled at Tell City. Bert Fenn had her pilotwheel which is now at the historical society's museum there, courtesy of Mary Fenn. I remember a rather dilapidated diesel sternwheel towboat tied up at the Tell City waterfront in the fall of 1976 that belonged to Morris Carlock. I don't recall any nameboards on it, but will check some slides I took at the time. It could well be that this is the hull to which you are referring.

The hull of the EDITH NUGENT must have been the one I saw, away back when. On a cold, wet autumn day in 1960, the AVALON, heading upbound, was scheduled to "play" TC, but when we arrived, no one was on shore awaiting us although when we got there it was the time specified for boarding. To everyone's great joy, Captain Wagner decided to keep a'going, as we were running behind time on a rising river. That particular hull was quite prominent on the bank, and I spent several minutes studying it as we steamed by.

Talking of steamboat hulls... There was a small one on the riverbank in Ludlow, Kentucky, near where Southern Ohio Marine had their fleet. Micky Frye and Virginia Bennett are both SOM vets. Anyone know if that hull still exists?

Ted: I'll not be of any help in determining if that is the CHICASAW on the bank at Tell City, but I DO remember seeing a small stern wheeler upbound light at the Cincinnati West End Power Plant (just downstream from the C&O bridge. That would have been in the early-to-mid 1950s. I assumed at the time she was steam and wondered why I din't find her in either Way directory. In retrospect, I assumed that she was a Corps of Engineers tender due to the Indian name. But being a gas boat, she would have escaped Fred's scrutiny. Anyway, it appears that you have cleared up a long-standing mystery to me. I don't remember if she had towing knees or not. Probably did.

Tom-My earliest recollection of seeing a sternwheel boat was the Chickasaw as I mentioned in the earlier posting. I was too young to know the difference between steam, gas or Shinola in those days. The boat was always pushing gravel barges so I would assume that it had tow knees. The last time I saw the boat was when it was in the weeds on the bank at Tell City. There was still a marina operating there that was owned by the Fischer family. My interest in steamboats was not all that strong until the early 1970’s so I figure the boat was there with a cabin and pilot wheel intact around 1973-74. I thought to myself at the time that it was just going to rot away completely but I was afraid the Fischer family may have had a purpose for it since it sat on the bank in front of their marina. I left it alone and did not go to jail.

I doubt if that hull at Tell City was the Chickasaw. In the 50's and early 60's she towed petroluem barges ( red flags) for Triangle Towing at Maysville. Then she towed for T & S towing out of Tobinsport in the Mulzer trade. In 1965 she went to Capt. Harry White of Belle, WV. He used her up on Kanawha till 1971. Hull became a work barge. The Chickasaw was a big boat, 120'l x 30'w with 1000 h.p. by Cats to a split wheel. Superstructure was all steel, so not likely to have seperated due to high water. One of the real fine early Nabrico boats built in 1926.

Mystery Boat

Thanks Bill-That helps clear up some of the story for me. You are exactly right about T & S Towing and the Mulzer trade. I guess that it was later than I thought when we would watch it going by. The boat that I saw on the bank above the Fischer Marina in the early 1970's had a wooden superstructure as best that I can recall and it had a sternwheel. It was already in very bad shape at the time which made me think that it was not going to last much longer there. I guess the search goes on for the name of the ghost boat.

I checked my slides last night and found three that were taken on October 24, 1976. The single deck sternwheeler had no nameboards of any kind, but the wooden pilotwheel was still intact. As Ted mentioned, the boat was tied up to the "Tell City Wharfboat" which was a structure on a barge. Bert Fenn and I gained access to the old sternwheeler through the courtesy of Norma Fischer, the proprietress of the wharfboat. I also checked the 1965 and 1995 editions of The Inland River Record and learned that the CHICKASAW was sold in 1965 to Capt. Harry White, so doubted it was this boat's hull that still litters the Tell City waterfront. Another sternwheel towboat which operated down in that area at the time was the GRACO, but I'm unsure as to her disposition, as I didn't find her listed in the latter edition of the IRR. Will keep on sleuthing!

THe Graco is alive and well, now the Lady Lois, owned by Nelson Jones. The Graco 's claim to fame was that the boat was used by Warner Bros. in the TV series " Mississippi". The Graco/ Lady Lois is a greatly traveled boat, lower ohio then to the Flint-Chattahocee system, upper Ohio and Kanawha.

Thanks, Cap'n Bill, for jogging my feeble memory about the GRACO becoming the LADY LOIS. I remember when actor Ralph Waite portrayed an attorney who traveled the river on the boat in the short lived 1983 television series "The Mississippi", which I never failed to watch. A lot of the series was filmed around Natchez and Vicksburg. One of the MISSISSIPPI nameboards from the towboat's role in film is displayed on the wall in the Under-the-Hill Saloon at Natchez.

From the "what its worth" department the M/V Graco and Str Sanco were long time flagships of the Bedford-Nugent Sand and Gravel Co. in Evansville Indiana.
Another Str Billy Koch also operated in the Sand & Gravel business.

Ed Ray
Dublin, Ohio

The M/V Graco was still working in the Evansville trade in 1968.

More on the "mystery" sternwheel towboat remains at Tell City. According to Dan Owen, who was with The Waterways Journal for over three decades and published The Inland River Record, the boat is most likely the GUY L., built at Brookport, IL in 1947, 80 x 16.8. She was owned by the Shawneetown Ferry until sold in June, 1956 to Brokamp & Bressler, Inc., at Cincinnati. Sold again to John J. Frank, Georgetown, IL and renamed MILLIE F. Sold about 1973 to Robert E. Anderson of Rising Sun, IN, who sold her in 1976 to Morris Carlock, Philpot, KY -- who restored the original name. Dan is sending me some photos he has of the boat and, if it's the same boat I took slides of in 1976, this should solve the mystery!

Thanks Ed. Your posting reminded me that the pilotwheel from the Str. Billy Koch is in the museum at Evansville. And there was a pilotwheel on the wall of the "Tell City wharfboat" in 1976 that was said to be from the Graco.

Isn't it amazing what the steamboats.org chatboard can do!

Please share the pics of the GUY L when you get them. The GL has a special place in my memory bank from when I first saw that most appealing chain-driven sternwheeler sitting empty, with no one aboard, in a cut the boat and crew had made through Three Mile Riffle on the Licking River before the Markland Pool was raised. The cabin, on the Main Deck, was painted in a mossy-green color that was very handsome, and the taste of that unusual boat color still lingers whenever the name is mentioned.

Keith

Do you or any of the other old timers still remember the service available to passing boat at Evansville which were available 7 days a week, round the clock as needed by Joe Vaught and the Steamboat Meat Market. In addition to food, tobacco products and reading material they could even have their mail forwarded to the Meat Market. Crewmembers would even come by there to meet a certain boat. The tow would slow as they neared Dress Plaza and they would launch a two-man skiff and they would row over to the Plaza to pick up their orders. Of course this type of service was all later replaced by mid-stream services. But back then it was a very appreciated service.

I got involved with the river and steamboats in the mid 1960's so, at age 52, I suppose I am an "old timer" in many ways! I have read of the Steamboat Meat Market in old issues of The Waterways Journal. I live at New Albany, Indiana (opposite Louisville) and am more familiar with Ohio River Service, which operated for many years under the direction of Neil Whitehead, who also was a longtime board member of the BELLE OF LOUISVILLE. Grocery delivery and midstream fueling service were provided from a barge pushed by the little towboat ELEANOR W., named for Neil's wife. Their landing barge was aboard an old car carrier moored near the Louisville Water Company. During my time as a crew member on the BELLE, Ohio River Service once delivered a new piano to us in midstream. A newspaper photographer was aboard and the next day's edition of The Courier Journal carried a large photo with the caption "Piano for a Paddlewheeler", showing the deck crew making the transfer. Probably one of the more unusual deliveries made in the middle of the river!

Tell City Cityfront by Harlan Hubbard

This is the way Harlan Hubbard remembered the Tell City waterfront.

Here is a picture Keith sent to be posted. Thanks Keith for sending the picture!

Here are Keith's comments:

Here's a 1966 photo of the same sternwheeler I saw at Tell City in 1976. Dan Owen says this picture was taken at Caintown, KY. Anyway, it's the MILLIE F.

When I saw the boat at Tell City there were NO nameboards of any kind anywhere.

Believe the location is actually Carntown, Ky. Sorry I can't remember the mile post but it was down around Cave-In-Rock on the Kentucky side. As can be seen a huge coal loading dock was located there which I believe is no longer active. Western Kentucky coal has too high a sulfur content to be used much today by power plants. A lot of the coal used today comes from Wyoming! No wonder our electric bills are so high.

Google Map of Tell City

I just did a Google map search for Tell City, IN. You can see the riverfront on the satellite view. From your description, the wreck should be large enough to see from the closest view-at least if it's above the water line. Which street is it located nearest to along the river. I'm hoping to find it.

Also pondering in Paducah.

Luke Moore;1022 wrote: Can anyone tell me which gas boat hull is laying in the weeds at the
Tell City riverfront? I've seen this hull with paddlewheel intact over the
years but never knew anything about it. Looks to be about 80' to 100'
in length with an appx. 12' to 14' dia wheel with chain guard in place.
The trees have impaled her rusted hull but it is still visible in the winter
months when foliage thins out. The cabin has been washed away by past
flooding no doubt.

Pondering in Paducah...Luke