The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-12-02
RECORD TRIP
 0F,IUCILLE New Boat Defies Low
 River Water MAIDEN RUN TO MONTGOMERY Manifest Was Cotton, Cotton Seed and Miscellaneous Freight Trips to Be Made weekly Between Mobile and capitaI--w. NJ. Flames
 Captain and c. M. Jack
 son Pilot.

Swinging gracefully around the bend of the river just below Montgom- cry. the wash of the wheel rolling V aves upon the sandy shores of the old '"cats hole and dashing spray. up against the walls of Benis blum on ths west side of she river. jaunty looking steamboat pushed her nose up to a point opposite the construc- tion misnamed a wharf at the foot of Commerce stret about o'clock yes terday morning.
 The boat was the Lucille" an inde- pendent boat. that made her first trip to Montgomery yesterday morning. She Is owned by Jack Hayes--a name familiar to every baseball fan in Montgomery as the popular manager of the 1895 Montgomery team-and w. NJ. Flames. The. building was com pleted, machinery, electric light plant and all last May, the Initial run being made from Mobile to Selma about the middle of that month.
 The boat is 165 feet in length from stem to stern and is one of the. light est draft boats that ever piled the Alabama river, drawing only eighteen inches without a load. To show how light she is the boat drew hardly three feet with an unusually heavy manifest and the river probably lower now than it has been in year or so, a scant three feet in the channel being the average, nearly half a foot less than that being had in the channel in some places.
 The river has been so low all of the past six or eight months that 1t has been impossible for any of the larger boats of the Birmingham and Gulf Line to get any further up the river than Selma and 1t has bten many months since those boats have been able to make the Montgomery trips. Tn the condition of the river now even the slightest swerve from the channel proper would mean dis aster. but c. M. Jackson Montgom- cry boy. Is first pilot of the Lucille, and being an old pilot on the govern ment boats on the river between Montgomery and Mobile. brought his boat over the treach erous bars be- tween Montgomery and Selma without losing any time.
 When she touched at Montgomery the manifest was 5000 sacks of cot ton seed, l50 bales of cotton. 200 boxes of soda from New York for local mer- chants and big lot of miscellaneous freight. The crew is: W. M Flames, captain; Jack Hayes, first clerk; c. M. Jackson, first pilot; Jeff Studeimeir,
 
 neer; Tom Hewlett. second engineer.
 A good passenger list was brought up and when the boat left for Ehe lower slver at Ii o'clock yesterday morning she had lerga passenger list, 500 bales of cotton tor New York and a big lot of local freight. The capacity Of the boat allowed by law is 1900 bales of cotton and 100 pas sengers. Young Jackson of Montgom- ery-or Cbosada--is local soliciting freight and passenger agent of the Lucille" The boat will make regu. lar weekly trips between Mobile and Montgomery, the trip up in the un- precedented low stage of the river yesterday showing that this is possi- ble with any kind of rive=.
 Just. what effect this independent boat will have on the business of ;he Alabama river at large and especially the Montgomery trlde remains to be seen. With the rtyer rising as 1t is now, the Birmingham and Gulf line will soon be able to operate thclr boats all the way from Mobile 10 Montgomery, and lt is possible within the next week or so that there will be at least two If not more boats at the local wharf every week.