8 Sternwheelers & a ton of barges

Mon River. Looks like Station Square to the right. Great photo.

boat id

What is the boat in the distance with the pilothouse perched high atop a small texas, like the Corps first MISSISSIPPI?

I'm wondering about the barges that look like house or office barges in the middle of the large groups of loaded coal barges. They don't look like they have power. The one in the middle of barges owned by River Coal is labeled R.C. T 26

Judy you may be right. The first corp boat named Mississippi had a rather large pilothouse. The boat your pointing out fits that profile. I recall another photo I once saw that had the Mississippi docked at just about that same location.

explanation in comments

Bruce, a Capt. Jack posted this in the comments section:

The size of the towboats and the existence of the smaller, houseboat-like craft in the middle and edge of the barge group may be related to the need for overnight accommodations for large numbers of line handlers in that period compared to today. For instance, breaking down the raft of barges to pass through a lock must have resulted in lots of yelling and running around.

I think T26, with a prominent stack, was probably equipped with steam power and could have functioned as a tug. Some of the others might have been nonpowered accommodation barges.

I never read so much misinformed claptrap in my life. Everyone has an opinion, and many times it's wrong. I read all of the comments posted under the Pittsburgh Harbor photo, and I kept on shaking my head. Many years ago William Reed used the original photo as a basis for one of his paintings. Fred Way commented on that painting in an early REFLECTOR, but don't ask me which one. If any of the posters on today's historic photo website ever read Capt. Way's comments, or heard of him, much of what was recently posted there would not have been!

First of all most of the coal in all of those coal boats is bound for the sunny south. Thanks to Davis Island Lock and Dam there was pool water in the Pittsburgh Harbor year round after 1885 so the coal could be fleeted and made ready for its trip downriver when there was coal boat water south of Pittsburgh.

T-26 was a pump boat. There was a boiler on it for steam, but the steam was used for steam syphons that were placed in the bottoms of the coal boats when needed. If you look close at the gunnels of the coal boats you can see the wooden box like structures where the syphons were dropped down when the boats were full. I have heard that all of the steam lines for syphons running across the fleet was called spaghetti by the old rivermen. Atleast that's what Dad use to call it.

My guess is that the only packet in view is the LORENA. That's what she looks like to me, but I could be wrong there. I can't figure out what the MISSISSIPPI would be doing up in the Iron City, but stranger things have happened.

What a great photo!

Thank you for posting it.