Str. Mamie S. Barrett Update

Here are several views, taken on Monday, April 26th, of the Str. MAMIE S. BARRETT, later the PENNIMAN of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. To briefly recap what has previously been discussed on this forum, the MAMIE was built at the Howard Shipyards in Jeffersonville in 1921. Retired in 1947, she served for many years as a boat club at West Alton, Missouri above St. Louis, renamed PIASA. She was sold in the mid 1980's to a couple at Eddyville, Kentucky who in turn sold her to the Capt. John and Mary Hosemann. She was a restaurant at Vicksburg for several years and then was tied up for a time across the river from Natchez at the Vidalia Dock and Storage Company. In 1994, she was offered to the Howard Steamboat Museum, but we had neither funds nor energy to take on such a project. About 1995, she was taken into a cutoff at Deer Park, Louisiana, some 17 miles downriver, virtually abandoned and has remained there, high and dry, ever since. Meanwhile, the MAMIE continues to rapidly deteriorate as the vegetation and varmints take over her decks and what remained of the paddlewheel. I continue to have "the impossible dream" of seeing the pilothouse (which still contains the pilotwheel, bell stand and lazy bench) all restored and displayed on the grounds of the museum! SIGH!

The Lower Mississippi River is on the RISE and was predicted to go at least two feet above flood stage on the Natchez gauge by May 16th. The MAMIE will be afloat and has two lines on her so she can't get away.