Str. Mamie S. Barrett video

Steve,

Thanks for the heads up on that link....all I can say is WOW! I would have never imagined that much was left on her.

On the Christmas cruise of 2004 I was supposed to go over there and have an escorted tour of the boat with a former crew member who had lived in Deer Park and knew all about it. Unfortunately, we were all busy that Christmas Eve Day aboard the DELTA QUEEN and there was worry of snakes over there in the wreck (it was still kinda warm for December) so we shelved the idea for another time (when the weather was cooler and the snakes hibernating) and never got back to it.

My person ended up leaving the DQ that winter and somehow I forgot about the adventure until you brought the boat back up.

Too bad the Howard Museum didn't get that pilothouse. I know there was talk of it a few years ago and somehow it never materialized. In the condition it appears to be in, it is an excellent candidate for them.

That wheel and brake system reminds me alot og the set up on the BELLE OF LOUISVILLE. As a matter of fact, it is almost identical...at least in concept and actuation.

~Travis~

Thanks, Steve for the link to the interesting video. Some of those pictures look VERY familiar, including one I took in July of 1988 at Vicksburg, showing my parents on the gangplank after we'd just had lunch in the former engine room. The MAMIE was owned by the Hosemann family then and Mrs. Mary Hosemann, now deceased, gave us a wonderful tour which included the pilothouse.

Yes, the MAMIE was offered to the Howard Steamboat Museum in the mid 1990's, but we have no funds to tow it up here or to restore and maintain it. We struggle to maintain the 22 room Victorian mansion, let alone an old steamboat! We did have hopes of acquiring the pilothouse for the yard, but there were many issues as to ownership of the boat, etc. Within the past year I have corresponded several times with Maria Greer, manager of the Deer Park Campgrounds. She recently told me that things are finally getting back to normal after the flood and that the MAMIE did move a few feet. Locals would like to see the old steamboat moved out of there.

And, yes, as Travis mentioned, the old boat is inhabited by SNAKES! I've been to Deer Park several times to take pictures, but I have made no attempts to board the boat, mainly due to the deteriorated, crumbling decks and the fact that residents told me the boat has reptiles living aboard. Jerry Hay told me he visited the boat in mid-January several years ago and saw some snakes slithering about, including one large one coiled up that he thought to be a cottonmouth! As much as I love to mess around old steamboats, I ain't goin' aboard the MAMIE!

Keith,
After the Howard Museum gave-up, we (HSPS, Inc) spent 2 years trying to find a way to get the Mamie towed up here. She would have been used as our landing barge, had the Loretta Howard not come along. But towing insurance was too high. The Mamie would have been restorable into something elegant again, while the Loretta Howard had been dismantled too far to do that. But the Loretta Howard does a good job as our landing barge, and I was able to undo some bad remodeling that had happened in the recent past.

As for the Mamie S. Barrett, the property owner down there still has her in a death grip.
I'm surprised she is still there, considering how high scrap steel prices were recently!

Steve ;;
Thanks for the tip on the video,,