Str. PRESIDENT Whistle

I believe this is its sound file.
http://www.steamboats.org/assets/media/audio/steamer-president-steam-whistle.mp3

Keith,

So, where did the chime (multi-tone, single bell) whistle come from she wore in her latter years? It was a pretty whistle, even as it was operated on air.

Ths JS/ADMIRAL/PRESIDENT whistle is a pretty looking thing...but, I bet it was an odd sounding contraption. Almost all the 4(or more) bell whistles I have heard (most at the whistle blows at Marietta when Capt. Nelson Jones brought his steam barge along and blew the Ohio River Museum whistles) have always had an almost unnatural screachy additional over tone to them. Perhaps, I would be wrong about this one?

Till these PRESIDENT/ADMIRAL threads, I had always thought the ADMIRAL wore a air horn and not a steam whistle. So this is all new news to me and rather exciting to think of all the history we are dredging up and learning about on here!

~Travis~

Travissimo!

The first time I rode the PRESIDENT at New Orleans in 1972 she used that single barrel whistle. I have no idea as to its origin. Too bad that Capt. Bill Carroll has passed on or I'm sure he could tell us.

Herewith are two photos of the PRESIDENT in her tramping days and one taken aboard the boat at New Orleans. The whistle is in evidence on the starboard stack.

As I recall, the 4 barrel JS DeLUXE/ADMIRAL whistle was not a pretty sound. Of the steamboat whistles I've heard in my 54 years on this planet, in my opinion the DELTA QUEEN's is the prettiest of them all.

Keith,

I will agree with you on the DELTA QUEEN whistle (10" 3-chime single bell)...it is the prettiest Lunkenheimer I have ever heard!

My second choice of prettiest whistle will go to the original 7-note (2 3-chime single bell whistles and one rather large single chime single bell whistle) whistle of the JULIA BELLE SWAIN, and third would be the last whistle on the MISSISSIPPI QUEEN (11" 3-chime single bell Lunkenheimer).

To my ears the next best thing to all the above is the BELLE OF LOUISVILLE whistle...I even like the NATCHEZ whistle.

The current whistle on the JULIA BELLE SWAIN gets my nod for worst whistle on the inland waters. It comes close to the first whistle on the MISSISSIPPI QUEEN for lackluster performance and tonal quality. However, I don't want anyone to think I don't like the boat, as I would run to her owner with cash if I ever won the lottery. I have loved that boat since the first moment I ever saw her and other than the PA DENNY, she is the first boat I would buy if money was no object. actually, if money were no object, I'd have them both!

~Travis~

Here's another view of the PRESIDENT, taken at New Orleans in 1967, with the whistle clearly in view on the starboard stack. I can't make out the names of the smaller excursion boats alongside, but I assume they are the MARK TWAIN and TOM SAWYER.

That NATCHEZ whistle is certainly a spine tingler! I well recall the FIRST time I heard it. It was the summer of 1974 and Capt. Doc Hawley and I were in the BELLE OF LOUISVILLE wharfboat office (then aboard the ex-steam towboat RENOWN) and suddenly there was a raucous whistle BLAST, followed by several more. Doc said, "What the **** is THAT?" We rushed out onto the guard and here came the DQ steaming down under the Second Street Bridge. Another whistle blast or two followed and then Capt. Ernie Wagner came out of the pilothouse waving and laughing! He got exactly the effect he desired! The "new" whistle for the Str. NATCHEZ (then under construction at Braithwaite, LA) was being delivered via the DQ and Capt. Ernie was having fun using it!

When the NATCHEZ arrived in Louisvlle in November, 2005 on the hurricane relief tramping trip, that whistle sounded even LOUDER as it reverberated off the buildings and bridges in the cold night air. Capt. Bert Suarez was the pilot on watch and he turned the big sternwheeler around on a dime and brought in her as skillfully as if he made that landing every day.

Keith,

You keep surprizing me with your endless collection of wonderful river pictures! This one shows todays SPIRIT OF JEFFERSON back in her bayou days. She is the vessel on the outside (left) of the picture. She was originaly named MARK TWAIN and operated out of New Orleans until 1970 when she came north and operated at St. Louis where she was renamed HUCK FINN, until 1995 when she came to Louisville to become the SPIRIT OF JEFFERSON.

The other little boat between her and the PREDISENT is the COMMODORE, which started life as CAPT CLARKS SHOWBOAT at Corpus Christi, TX in 1967 and later came to New Orleans as the COMMODORE. The date she came to New Orleans is unknown to me. But the cabin structure behind the pilothouse is the only of its type built by the Dubuque Boat and Boiler Company, so it is undoubtedly her. She ran at New Orleans until 1981 when Streckfus sold the New Orleans operation to New Orleans steamboat Company in January. She was renamed and sold in 1982 as the BECKY THATCHER which operated at Knoxville, TN originally and later at Cincinnati, OH by BB Riverboats, Covington, KY. They sold her in 1995 to Spirit of Sacramento Riverboats to replace the original SPIRIT OF SACRAMENTO which was in a John Wayne movie and had burned in 1994 (who recently sold her to Sacramento Yacht Charters). They renamed her SPIRIT OF SACRAMENTO and operate her imediatly behind the DELTA KING at Old Sacramento, CA on the Sacramento River. She went to Sacramento under her own power according to their website ( Sacramento Yacht Charters - Information ). Doesn't this say tons about the durability of the Dubuque built boats?

How those little Dubuque built sternwheelers, faux sternwheelers, and riverboats got around!

One of these days someone will write a book about the Dennis Trone designed riverboats from the 1950's-1971 ear at Dubuque and follow all the boats through their careers....quite a few of them are still out there operating. I would LOVE to read this book! Maybe one of our Dubuque posters or his son will take on such a task?

Isn't it amazing how we can post on a subject and get so far off the intended base?

I would still love to know the origins of that single bell multi-chime whistle on the PRESIDENT!

~Travis~

Thanks, Travis, for the clarification. I had plumb forgotten about the COMMODORE. Yes, those little boats DID get around. I rode the TOM SAWYER in Tampa Bay in 1970 and remember her being at St. Petersburg in 1976, with the little GOLDEN ARROW, once a private sternwheeler owned by St. Louis businessmen, as the wharfboat.

Speaking of the HUCK FINN, now our SPIRIT OF JEFFERSON here at Lousville -- I have one of her pilothouse nameboards in my River Room. Capt. Mike Fitzgerald delivered it to my home LATE one night and just propped it against the side of the garage. The next morning when I backed out, there it was! The neigbors must have wondered what a long sign with HUCK FINN emblazoned on it in huge red and blue letters was doing there!

Yes, somebody should write a book about the boats Denny Trone designed. Perhaps YOU can do that! Someday, when I retire, I plan to write of the Eagle Packet Company. Eagle Boat Store and the Captains Leyhe to augment Capt. Roy Barkhau's fine little book that was published in 1951. Already have voluminous files of information and photographs -- and it continues to grow each year with fascinating finds!

Maybe Capt. Joy Manthey could shed some light about the single barrel whistle on the Str. PRESIDENT. Just a thought!

Does anyone know how the PRESIDENT overland move is going? How much more have they done?

The Pilothouse was planted yesterday alongside the Smokestack. It was moved in one piece by truck using both lanes of I-70 @ 65 mph, two state patrol cars, two escort cars and other(s). (Not me). My source said he was one of the 'others'. His quote "traffic was backed up for miles".

Some other pieces are stacked like cordwood--including the 'remains' of the calliope, NOT by the Pilothouse and Smokestack.

What is left of the calliope nowadays?

Travis,

Last night I dug out some old copies of STRECKFUS STEAMERS MAGAZINE, including the souvenir issue published when the PRESIDENT came out new in 1939. Lots of photos and details about the boat, but I could find nothing regarding the whistle. I'll ask Doc Hawley and see if he can shed any light upon the mystery.

Meanwhile, here are three more images of the single barrel tooter. I snapped the first two at New Orleans in March, 1972. The third was taken at St. Louis in August, 1988.

Matt,

Of the original calliope...only the manifold. I hear the new (3rd on the instrument) keyboard and most the electronics (2nd set installed on this instrument) are still in place. None of the original Thomas J. Nichol whistles are still on the manifold. I am glad this is the case, as I hear it is sitting in a field where the boat is to be restored and chances are, if they were there, they'd walk away.

I am hoping the owner will keep his word and contact Dave Morecraft and have the instrument restored properly when they do what ever they are planning on doing with the boat. It would be great to see the vessel rebuilt and restored. I am not too hopeful this will happen as planned, as from the pictures I have seen, she is coming apart rather quickly and with what appears to be relative abandon.

~Travis~

According to curator Bette Gorden, the brass keyboard of the PRESIDENT calliope is at the Pott Waterways Library (Mercantile Library) at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

Keith,

She needs to keep it so future generations can see one of those tracker keyboards as they were designed. There are precious few of those still around...much less intact!

~Travis~