str. EAST ST. LOUIS

more EAST ST. LOUIS

1)Here's the night shot Keith was probably looking for when he found my Dolly picture instead... just think what we could find if we were organized!
2) Looks like the soda shop, haven't seen many pix like this one.

Thanks Judy -- that's the photo I was looking for when Dolly turned up! Also found a number of photos of the EAST ST. LOUIS in back issues of the S&D REFLECTOR.

Judy,
My drawings have been criticised because some person definitely remembered a detail that either was not shown or was shown differently. For some reason people cannot understand that boats change and, like humans, get heavier. I received a particularly bitter letter from a man who remembered the location of the Bryant showboat calliope on the showboat, while I drew it on the towboat. I had photographs showing that calliope in four distinct places.
Then there was the guy who said I should have gone to the Rob't. E. Lee and made measurements! He believed, in the 1980's, that the Rob';t. E. Lee was still afloat and in business.
One wonders sometimes. . .

Ooh! The soda shop is nice! Could you email me a copy of that? I tried printing it and it didn't come out that well. This could end up in a painting. Lots of possibilities.

Lexie, I don't have a good email address for you. Email me at: [email protected] and the soda shop will be on the way.

Changes in boats

Alan, we'd be hardpressed to name a boat that lasted more than 5 years that didn't have a fairly obvious change in appearance, wouldn't we? It's almost laughable when we say the CINCINNATI became the PRESIDENT or the ALBATROSS became the ADMIRAL, because those basically kept the hull, engines and machinery but the superstructures were entirely new and unlike the first edition of the boat. The PREZ does have some arches on the forward main deck from the CINCINNATI, but all other superstructure was new. As to the same boat having changes, just look at the NATCHEZ: her first year she had the red trim on the pilothouse roof and the fantail railings were white. Not so obvious from the exterior, but the galley got enlarged and windows were added there. The most obvious external change was the addition of the awnings for the 1985 season. Late 1980s the stern windows on the boiler deck were lengthed to allow a view of the paddlewheel from the dining room. For a few years in the late 1980s there were faux scape pipes added, but they met a 'mysterious' demise during a layup. Around 1990, the white rim was removed from the outside of the paddlewheel, as it kept bending while they turned the wheel doing repairs while on Buck Kreihs' dock. A dishwashing room was added to the starboard side just forward of the big NATCHEZ nameboard, late 1990s. The biggest interior changes were the removal of the bulkheads in the dining room area which had divided it into 3 smaller areas. The first one was removed before I ever saw the interior in 1980. The second one was removed in 1987/88. Renovation goes on and on, whether in the old days or today...

Do you see those three heavy beams under the cabin arches? The piothouse is directly above them and it must have shaken a lot.
We had that problem on the Belle of Louisville, but those beams are hidden above the ceiling. Ask Jim Blum sometime.

Those bulkheads were built to satisfy the commander at the USCG's New Orleans Merchant Marine Technical Office. He was a total nut on fire safety and is the reason why the boat never had a wooden pilotwheel - too great a fire hazard, he claimed. That KAMEL (see Langenscheidt's) never did find out what a steamboat is. He is the reason for the extra-high thresholds at the boiler deck doors. They were required to fend off the waves in the Mississippi River! I wonder how many passengers have stumbled or fallen at those doors in the last 30 years? The light fixtures on the boiler deck ceiling are waterproof to prevent shorts in the event of a sinking - no matter that the generator would be under water long before it reached thyat high. I feel certain that he eventually made admiral.

high doorsills

One of the 'required' safety announcements on the NATCHEZ reminds the people to step up and over the doorsills, which are raised due to CG regulations. I also wonder about the move several years ago when the life rafts had to go from the main deck up to the roof. How many passengers would be able to get up those steep narrow pilothouse stairs to catch a lifeboat up on the roof???????

I saw that photo in an old issue of the S&D REFLECTOR, but now I don't remember WHICH one!