The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-03-22
OLD STEAMBOAT DAYS
Once Busy Season Now Closes With.
 out Attracting Notice

without any ceremony or fuss, the
 steamboat season on the upper Mississippi
 has closed for another season, the only announcement being written notice, tackled on the door of the office at the levee, "Closed till next May" says a St. Paul special to the Philadelphia Public Ledger It means only that the two packet steamers between St. Paul and St. Louis will remain south until spring. and that the excursion boats will tie up at their home wharves until next years sun thaws them from the ice again.
 The closing of the rIver season affects very small handful of men now, most of whom will continue to work on the southern division for the next six months a few drifting into transient jobs in cities
 The river days of old are no more. The golden age of the Mississippi is but memory now, and many people up this way never knew, or have forgotten, such noble steamers as War Eagle, Mary Nor ton, Pittsburg and Centennial.
 Only few years ago these and numer- ous other boats piled busy traffic on the Mississippi from St. Louis to St. Paul and all the river towns did much business with them. Day after day these boats stopped at Hastings, Red Wing and the cther towns on the river to unload car goes or merchandise and to load up with equally large cargoes sent forth from
 lttle cities in to the current of trade
 It was no uncommon thing for boat to tie up an hour at a town of a 1000 pop ulaton.
 The whistle sounding above the bend was the signal which called old and young alike to the levees to watch the great boats land, and to sec the negro deck hands hustle barrels and bales ashore as the captain shouted his orders. i
 There is not city along the river in which children did not go daily to the Wharf to see the boats come in and to. make friends with the cook who was all ways ready to hand out big slices of . nam and bacon to the youngsters.
 Gradually the American craze for speed in transportation pushed the river steam boat aside and the railroad took the h,,iA of the freight business.
 People of today can hardly realize that 6 few years ago it was a common spec tacle in many river towns to see teams lined up for one or two miles waiting to unload wheat on the boats. Wagons of grain were driven as far as 300 miles to reach river port, and oftentimes a man would wait in line all day and all night before his turn to unload came.
 After the river ceased to be the chief grain transportation medium. it still re- mained popular highway for all ordinary In time 1t lost this distinc- ton, also and today summer passenger business constitutes it's chief asset.
 A few years-ago the closing of tine r~crs season in the fall turned hundreds of men loose to find winter jobs. Now it hardly adds score to those seeking for work.
 The passing of the lumber mills in the small river towns has also changed the history of the river, and today the old tune riverman. who was a distinct type ike the ocean sailor. is almost vanished. The rafting of logs is most uncommon now, where few years ago it was tre- nendous industry.
 A new era has arrived and the day is , near when few will be able to tell just what the typical riverman was. Yet there Is not town on the river from St. Louis up that does not carry some tradition of his romance. But. like the Indian and the fur trader he is almost al, extinct species