Calliopes on the Greene Line

Probably because he was looking for a "Modern" experience on his boats. The nostalgia thing didn't really start until Quimby came along, at least IMHO.

*Calliopes on GREENE LINE? Yes!*
Morning, JIm & David,
Yep, you bet there were 'calliopes on the GREENE LINE' boats way back. Capt. Gordon C. Greene's packet CRICKET had a steam 'pianna' made at Evansville, Indiana. In the now vintage and scarce history of the GREENE LINE booklet for the 75th Anniversary titled, 'From the wake of our past come many moments to remember' is a vintage photo showing Mrs. Jesse P. Hughes [Aunt Telia] seated at the keys of the calliope. Text mentions, "It was transferred around to several of the steamboats." Capt. Jesse, Telia and their children were as close to the Greenes as friends, confidents, colleagues for years. To have talked one-on-one with Capt. Jesse in my day was the closest thing to knowing, living the really old days on the river and steamboats.

The then novel calliope for the DELTA QUEEN didn't come until later years--1960s. A number of us here recall then the installation of the calliope on the DQ and then all the 'flack and fall-out' over it. Received big press here in Cincinnati with articles, photos of Jay Quinby, then involved with the GREENE LINE. This story, I think, was discussed/posted on Steamboats.org some years back. You bet Capt. Tom Greene could pound the ivories on the piano and then some. His mother, Capt. Mary B. Greene also was an accomplished pianist. Music runs in the Greene family genes with, in later years, Mary Greene, Capt. Tom and Letha's daughter, also a trained vocalist.

Thanks Jim for drawing our attention. Alas and alack, I never venture to FACEBOOK and only respond when somebody draws attention. Again, what do I know?

R. Dale Flick
Coal Haven Landing, Ohio River, Cincinnati

Somewhere in the dark recesses of my brain I seem to remember that the calliope on the CRICKET was transferred over to the GREENLAND when she made her famous tourist trips to the St. Louis World's Fair during 1904.

As far as the CRICKET having a calliope remember that for awhile during her life she served as the towboat for a floating circus. I seriously doubt that the frugal Greenes would have placed a calliope on the CRICKET while running as a packet.

*Calliopes on Greene boats*
Hi, Frank,
'CRICKET calliope transferred to the GEEENLAND...St. Louis World's Fair, 1904' also has a familiar tone sounding in my mind [Oh, that was a bad one!]. With what time I've had today was spent sleuthing old photos of GREENE LINE boats looking for evidence of a calliope--any calliope--on the decks. You may recall the transcript of the fascinating 'interview' of Capt. Mary B. Greene [NEVER 'Ma Greene' by those who knew her] I uncovered done in 1948 telling of her early years and the St. Louis World's Fair in her own words. Then the GREENLAND made the trip from Pittsburgh to St. Louis and back. That was some trip even then. The GREENE LINE didn't officially move to Cincinnati until 1904--and that's a whole new story in itself. One helping hand, believe it or not, extended to Capt. Gordon C. and Mary B. Greene was from old Commodore Fred Laidley of the L&C LINE himself.

Let's you and I check to see about the "frugal Greenes and the calliope on the CRICKET as a packet." You can bet the calliope was played only when needed with the steam valve being spun shut to save steam and fuel. There was many a year until not too long ago when the DELTA QUEEN, then based here in Cincinnati, steamed out on the Mardi Gras cruise opening her new cruising year with barely a farthing in the cash accounts. The DQ Mardi Gras cruise the test litmus as to how, possibly, the new year bookings would go. The Greene family's 'hands on management' walking around, lifting cooking pot lids, checking carefully food order accounts, milking the last globs of paint out of cans, saving pennies to make dollars a far cry from some of the later management when good money was tossed after good money with them ignoring dollars to appear saving pennies. Well, as usual, what do I know?

R. Dale Flick
Coal Haven Landing, Ohio River, Cincinnati.

Very interesting thread Jim has started, and all these comments are probably true to varying degrees. Here's my take on it: Like Dale, I think the Greene's saw little reason to put a calliope aboard their boats. The reason(s) for this might be several, but my thinking is that for the most part the Greene line boats were workhorses. Their customers didn't care about a calliope any more than we'd care about the FedEx truck playing a tune for us when they deliver a package.

Most of their customers, if not shipping freight, were looking for a way to get from point "A" to point "B". The St. Louis World Fair trips were a (experimental?) foray into the tourist business. A calliope might well have drawn attention to the boat, but certainly would not have been one of their first thoughts when trying out those trips.

Business models change, and the public's perception of everything evolves over time. When Richard Simonton bought the DQ, she was in dire straits. He brought his friend E.J. Quinby into the mix as a PR or marketing man, something Simonton realized was needed. Of course, Quinby had his own hobby-horse, pipe organs and calliopes; Simonton shared Quinby's love of organs. Since a big pipe organ has no place on a steamboat, but calliopes were associated with boats, Quinby thought this would be a great place for one. Whether he shrewdly knew what it would mean for the boat in terms of public relations is anyone's guess -- I think he DID know what it would do for the boat's image, but he also had a personal reason for wanting the calliope: he liked 'em and it was kind of his "toy"! When the Safety at Sea Law came into play, the calliope played right into that PR strategy (no pun intended).

So the calliope was, in a roundabout way, a business decision that has really proved itself. Tom Greene didn't need one when he was running the business, so he didn't have one. "Steamboatiana" and nostalgia notwithstanding, had Capt. Tom lived through the 1960's and 70's he might very well have gone the same route eventually as far as a calliope was concerned. It helped the boat make money and he probably would have seen value in that.

Sounds right on, Bob!

Your logic sounds correct. If we think about what boats had calliopes, they were ones that drew passengers for the current trips/shows: excursion boats, showboats. Often the calliope was the means by which the townspeople knew the boats had arrived in town, so they could come on down. As we from the 70s/80s pre-conglomerate DQ know, her calliope certainly did draw people to the locks and levees, and back then they were allowed to board to tour the boat, paying into the Captain's Fund for the privilege. How many future trips were sold by those experiences, one can only guess, but I'm sure it was a significant number.

*Those 'some-time' Greene boat calliopes*
Morning, Steamboating colleagues:
Bob, you've again hit the provebial nail on the head [Or have you hit 'the right key? Oh! another bad one!] in your ruminations over the actual 'need' of calliopes on GREENE LINE boats back then. Keith, Travis, Capt. Doc Hawley and others no doubt know far more as they all have/had their fingers on these instruments along with researching the history. Calliopes, then associated with showboats, excursion boats, circuses were the 'trumpet of steam' calling passengers and showboat customers down to the river landings. Usually 'front men' hit villages, towns, cities early on to slap up posters, put posters in store windows--even hit the local newspapers for paid ads. This in the day when there were no telephones, TV, even radio. Later on Betty Blake, being the 'head man' for the AVALON and then moving over to the GREENE LINE and the DELTA QUEEN, employed all methods moving to TV's shows 'What's My Line' and I've Got A Secret' along with negotiating commercials of products employing the DELTA QUEEN.

I also wonder today what would have transpired had Capt. Tom Greene lived on not passing away at such a young age in 1950? Capt. Tom, in several of his personal letters, either coined or used his favorite term "Steamboatiana." He wasn't using the term in any demeaning way as he was just as hooked on steamboats more than any. Again, it was the Greene family bread and butter without all the later nostalgia and steamboat romance. And if you didn't think they had headaches, logistical problems, financial issues then think again. Mrs. Letha Greene always was on edge each year wondering how the new DQ season would kick off with Mardi Gras and full bookings on the boat. Capt. Tom could well have survived down into the 1970s, '80s and even the 1990s. No doubt his thinking on running a tourist steamboat company would have changed from calling the DELTA QUEEN "steamer." Remember, from the beginning it was GREENE LINE STEAMERS and not GREENE LINE STEAMBOATS. One term used back in 1948 was "river liner" for the DQ. Also the Greene packet boats were just that, freight and passengers conveyances from point A to Z. The freight paid the way, made the real money with the passenger division being the 'cream at the top.' And as 'night boats' there would be no need for a calliope. And to think that in the last years of operation even the DELTA QUEEN's wonderful whistle wasn't even blown in place of the modern air horn. Some in the know said, "Even the calliope at times seems to being ignored." What the latter owning company was thinking then a good question. Tourism with a passenger steamboat is color, excitement, whistles, bells, banners, flags, calliope etc. I can only wonder what VIKING RIVER's approach will be in due time? Hate to say it, but back when the DQ's then new calliope was installed there were certain 'grousings' and complaints even within the GREENE LINE operation--and I heard it all. Somebody said publicly then, "Now the calliope. Are they even going to carpet the boilers?"

I'm not as in touch or on the spot as many here. What ever happened to the plan to install the calliope on ACL's boat? I was contacted by the company on this. I gave them leads, directions on acquiring what was, I think, the WASHINGTON's calliope never hearing another word. Was it ever installed? Good to see that some 'life' is coming back on Steamboats.org. Again, I now know what I don't know.

R. Dale Flick
Coal Haven Landing, Ohio River, Cincinnati.

Dale's correct there was much opposition to the DQ's calliope when it was first announced. The "traditionalists" said a calliope had no place on a passenger boat. Quinby, who was a master at PR and promotion, turned the calliope from a "pain in the ear" to an asset for the boat. People today associate the DQ with the sound of the calliope, all thanks to Quinby's foresight. If it weren't for Quinby and the DQ how many people today along the rivers would have never heard a real steam calliope?
My first rememberance of the river was a calliope. When I was about 5 my grandmother owned a rental cottage on the riverbank in Utica, Ind. One Saturday my dad had to go there to do some repairs. While there I remember hearing music coming from up the river. The whole town ran to the landing and there was the MAJESTIC, with the calliope putting out great clouds of steam and wonderful music, rounding to to land. Once landed, the band came out and played a mini-concert. The memory of that day these 66 years later is still crystal clear.
That was the start of my life long love for the river and I guess I'm proof that a steam calliope can change a life. I wonder how many lives Quinby's DQ calliope has changed over the years.

Just an off the wall comment on the possible "propriety" of the early Greene Line boats being fitted with a calliope. The Greene family of that period seems to be a rather staid and proper group.

Could carrying a calliope be equated as "vaudeville" and not catering to the clientele who would want to travel on a "respectable" boat for an extended "excursion".

I remember my maternal grandfather (1875-1971) making comments about some of the "entertainment" in "music hall(s)" around Peebles Corner-Cincinnati and the "Beer Halls" next to the Mt Adams Incline and Price Hill Incline as being somewhat "suspect"--not
being exactly "wholesome entertainment".

Just an off the wall thought.

*Greenes "said and proper group"*
Morning, Steamboating colleagues:
Jim, I think you make a good point in your above RE: the Greene family and use of--or lack of--calliopes on their boats. And a "staid and proper group" [family] they were. The steamboat business was just that--a family business of the hardest order then. The Greene family approach, as written here so often, based in 'MBWA' known to General Motors quality control executives as 'Management by walking around.' Every single aspect they checked, observed closely. The boats to them were 'a means to an end and not an end in themselves' with no warm, fuzzy, misty-eyed steamboat romance. Yet, they did love the boats and the river.

The Greenes were far from media portraits as near country bumpkins on the river. Capt. Mary B. [Becker] Greene hailed from a family of fine dentists. My family knew two generations of Becker dentist here in Cincinnati. Capt. Gordon C. Greene was astute in addition to reading philosophy in his free time. Capt. Gordon C. Greene quoted with, "I dream of steamboats; it's always steamboats: somethimes they are in trouble, and sometines it's just a nice moonlight night and everything's going fine--but it's always steamboats." Capt. Mary B. Greene was a classy lady and not the perceived 'Ma Greene' similar to 'Tug boat Annie.' She quoted, "When you marry a riverman, you marry the river too. That's the code of steamboatin'." And there appears that clipped word "Steamboatin'" we know so well now.

For years the Greenes lived in upscale Hyde Park here or in other fine Cincinnati suburbs. I've talked in the past to the now nearly extinct group of old-timers who knew, went to school with either Capt. Tom Greene or brother Capt. Chris Greene. "Sure, we knew the Greene boys. Went to school with them; in sports and music with them. We kinda' knew who the family was but then it didn't make any difference...nobody paid attention." The Greenes were and are still linked to Hyde Park's great Knox Presbyterian Church. I asked Mary Greene, Capt. Tom and Letha's daughter, "Mary, where were you when your dad brought the DELTA QUEEN into Cincinnati the first time from New Orleans?" Mary never hesitated. "Well, that day I was at Withrow High School singing in music class. I never would have been taken out of school that day. We went down to see the boat later." What's that tell you?

Jim Blum, my eyes bugged reading above when you mentioned, "Peebles Corner, Cincinnati...entertainment...beer halls...music halls." That's the way it was in your and my time. Again, I'll never see 70 again. Peebles Corner was one high-class area in those days up from town in Walnut Hills. People confused 'music halls' often with 'burlesque.' 'Music halls' were usually clean, legit like the music hall tradition in England. Vaudeville was pretty clean then but burlesque had a connotation--and clientele--all it's own. Some of the guys I new in high school and University of Cincinnati used to slip down to sneak in the bulesque shows. Again, what do I know?

R. Dale Flick
Old Coal Haven Landing, Ohio River, Cincinnati