The Columbus dispatch., 1921-09-04
THE PACKET COMES
BACK TO STAY

II
floating places that ran up and dow
the waterways of the lower Mississip
pi Valley a third of a century ago, tn,
y river steamboat--b better known as tn,
n packet has come back. Confirm
: ing the faith of the old river captains
: some Of whom have died in that faith
but most of whom have held onto {
{ life at New Orleans, and Memphis
and Natchez, and st. Louis, and Other
river ports, the day of the stern
> wheeler has returned And oddly
/ enough, most of these revived pack,
I cts Of other days. as we'll as the new
ones, are commanded by those men
who have been waiting uncomfortable
and cramped in their shore quarters,
all these years for the steamboat to
return 10 its own.
Within the past fS months, since
the first of January 1920, forty seven
of these packets have returned to
work on the Mississippi, the Red, the
Atchafalaya, Bayou Lafourche, Bayou
Terrebonne, the Warrior, the Tombig-
bee, and other streams of the South,
wherever there is water enough to
float their flat bargelike hulls, or to
give their slowly revolving paddles
grip enough to drive them ahead.
That they are here, every town along
these rivers knows, but where they
came from not even the oldest "river
man" can tell. Some have been laid
up for Is, 20, 30 years, in ports of
missing boats, idle but beloved and
hopeful; scme have been working in
desultory fashion, on small inland
streams, eking out an existence in
competition with motor boats, and a
number, possibly one-third of the to-
tai, have been built new for this re-
vival.
The Interstate Commerce Act of
1887, giving the railroads the right to
charge less for a long haul, provided
the long haul was in competition with
water carriers, put the packets out Of
business. The act of the Interstate
Commerce Commission of 1919-1920,
allowing the railroads to boost their
rates to new high levels, brought
back the packets into a more profit
able business, mile for mile, than they
had 35 years ago, The Federal gov
ernment with its barge lines on the
and Warrior rivers, show !
ed the way to the owners and builders {
and operators Of the packets, and the .
1ld river captains, many Of whose :
names had been all but forgotten, sud l
lenly stood once more in the glass +
cabin, just beneath the twin q
gilded eagles and squarely between 9
he towering smokestacks, heading
nee more into the stream.
Today, the New Orleans waterfront,
which has been bare of these packets a
or many years, so bare that the in &
oming Of one was described in all the a
ewspapers, holds from three to a
ozen or more every morning, and by 4
fternoon, on most of these days, this h
leet has been replaced by newcomers, a
like save for size--so much alike ii
hat only by looking for the name en- =
rossed on a scroll across the front h
f the cabin can one tell which is E,
'hich at the Benville Street landing. a,
10 boat in the history of the world p,
YER had the romantic career of the
Id river packet, with its sturdy hull, D
s gingerbread" superstructure, it's
Iazng furnaces, fed by sooty blacks, .
s belching stacks, It's gilded ball
,oms, and its stateroOms done in
ue and pink and yellow, to suit the 90
Istes of the rich rice and sugar and ~
,tton planters and cattlemen. The :;
ices of these boats are matters of
story, and thousands of dollars
ianged hands on the contests such as
lose of the Robert f. Lee" and the .
from Orleans to st.
ouis, or of the Liberty" and the =,
rst America, from Memphis to
ew Orleans, nearly half a century q,
90.
But, with the return of these pack o
IS, the romance has gone from their 60
rvice. They have come back for 9.
ork and not for play; they are now
eight caTriers, with passenger traf- -,
C only an incident. With railroad -,
eight rates 20 to 40 per cent above =,
ose at which freight can be han -
ed profitably by these steamboats,, :.
ose who have watched the trend of :.
in the United States ~
I'VE seen that the money lies in the =
eight. The men who have bought 4;
.ck the packets realize that, while
ey can make IT'S freight miles a
", against the railroad average of
miles, they cannot compete with
e 300 TO $50 miles day Of the pas