Catoctin clarion. [volume] (Mechanicstown, Md.) 1871-1940, 1920-12-16

nlscence8.
The river Steamboat, the floating
palace of travel and trade which once
linked every town In the Mississippi
valley with New Orleans, when the
Crescent city was the third settlement
In size in North America, Is coming
back. Increased freight rates by rail-
now 20 to 40 per cent higher than
steamboat rates; greater speed, 10
miles a day water average against -
miles a day freight car average, ana
the construction of terminal facilities
at virtually every river port In the MIS-
sissippi- valley from New Orleans to
ST. Paul, are the factors which, ac-
cordiny 70 old river men, are bringing
the freight traffic back to the steam
boats, says the Christian Science Mon
itor. Better accommodations. chance
for closer inspection Of the country
and greater enjoyment OF the trip, pet
ter food and much lower fares. these
same river men say, are attracting
greater passenger traffic to the steam
boats, packets and larger notorious
than they have had in the last fifty
years.
Packets In Commission.
Whatever may be the causes which
are bringing back traffic to the steam
boats, one thing is certain, the steam
boats have found the new conditions
profitable, and from their berths along
the Mississippi, from New Orleans to
Cincinnati, through Natchez and Vicks-
burg and Memphis and Cairo and st.
Louis, and even out on the feeder
streams, such as the Red and the Ohio
and the Illinois and the Missouri and
the Wisconsin, more than thirty pack
cts have been towed this summer to he
repaired and put back into service
Many Of these boats have been idle for
Ave years, not few ten, and some
for fifteen, but their cypress and OAK
hulls have withstood the passage of
time without damage, so that all thai
many need is merely repairs to the
superstructure, renovation of the pas
senger apartments. many of the cabins
heing as large as half whole Pull
man car, and new coat OF paint.
For some years the Bienvilie street
landing I'm New Orleans, formerly the
point for the river packets to take on
and discharge cargoes and passengers,
has been given over almost entirely TO,
motor freight and passenger carriers,
the steamboats, having been virtually
retired from business. Now, however.
the city Is planning to devote part OF
S6,50OOOO to be used in harbOr i'm
provements to the construction of an
other landing for the steamboats,
alone, so great has been their sudden
return to work after years of idleness
due to the streams Of the Mississippi
valley.
ld-TImers.
The queen of all this large feet of
steamboats, which are coming back to
the Mississippi Is the America, which
has been in service for Fl years, car
rying rice, cotton, sugar and other
freight, and has never been tied up one
season. She is larger than the famous
Robert e. Lee or the equally noted
Natchez, which had such a famous.
race on the Mississippi more than
seventy years ago. Her owner and cap
tain, L. v. Cooley, has been owning
and operating river steamboats, for 80
years, and this year he extended the
schedule of the America to Greenville.
Miss, though for years she had never
gone farther north than Monroe. La,
on the Ouachita river.
To Captain Cooley and to other old
err men of the river steamers the re-
turn to waterway transportation is
natural, for it is what they have been
waiting for, some Of them, for 30
years. While the whistle Of America
puffed 81 told you sol" to passing
and smaller packet out in the stream
of the Mississippi from her Peters ave-
nue. landing at New Orleans recently,
Captain Cooley talked to me of the re-
vival Of the steamboats,. Here is part
of .vsist he said:
Commerce follows the line of least
resistance. No sooner had the restless
pioneer crossed the Alleghenies and
settled on the banks Of the Ohio than
instead of hauling his produce across
800 or 400 miles of mountain range to
tidewater, he began floating In on fiat
boats, RATS and keelboats down the
rivers to the Mississippi, and thence to
New Orleans, often 1900 miles from
his log house in the wilderness Of the
western slope Of the mountains When
the steamboat came In 1872 and was
able to breast the current upstream as
well as down, New Orleans began
sending back goods In exchange, and
towns grew up around the traders
post at Vicksburg, Memphis, Cairo and
other places The fiatboat and the
raft passed out, and steamboats, multi.
piled amazingly until the Civil war.
"reminiscences.
with the blockade of the river
while was still small boy, the
steamboat. industry sank to nothing,
but is revival following the war
was one of the most astoundingly rap
id movements American commerce ever
knew. until from 1869. when went to
work on the river, to 1887 those steam
ers became literally floating palaces.
furnishing conditions OF travel com.
parable with the best furnished by the
transatlantic liners of today. And I
know, because | travelled on those.
steamboats, as captain, mate and pas
senger, and ! have crossed the Attain
tic on the most modern of liners.
I'm 1869 there were Al separate andl