Steamboat Arabia

A Summary of Fall 2018

So, I have finally wrapped up the posts about my Fall 2018 travels. Time for a short summary.

I spent the night in six states and passed through Illinois.

I visited some friends along the way.

I met Sue in real life in Kansas City, Kansas. We’d known each other on Facebook for years.

I met up with Jack and Elizabeth, old Airstreaming buddies and Facebook friends, in Kansas City, Missouri.

I met up with Nancy in Conway, Arkansas. We’ve been digital friends from BEFORE Facebook!

I couldn’t resist including this photo of Nancy and her dog.

Karen and I got together for the first time in real life in Nashville, Tennessee.

Finally, I got to spend time with Ron, an old friend from Kalamazoo who moved to Cincinnati back in the ’90s.

I also made some friends. Julie and Mike were the first T@bbers I met actually camping!

I also made some inroads on my mission to visit state capitols.

By KTrimble at English Wikipedia – Own work (KTrimble), CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15646618

I saw Missouri’s state capitol in Jefferson City. I had to “borrow” the photo from my Preferred Source as my photos were suboptimal.

This was about the best shot I had. As I said, suboptimal.

I visited Tennessee’s capitol in Nashville.

The capitol of Kentucky in Frankfort rounds out the group.

I also managed to get a few things checked off my “Next Time” list.

I visited The Steamboat Arabia Museum in Kansas City, Missouri. The steamboat sank in the Missouri River in 1856 and was found in a cornfield in 1988. The course of the river shifted so much over time that it made it hard to locate, even though people had ideas about where it was. It was a treasure trove of everything needed for daily life in the middle of the 19th century.

There was glassware.

All the goods you would need to set up housekeeping.

Heck! They even had the stuff you would need to build the house!

I managed to tour the Gibson Guitar factory in Memphis, before it closed.

I am usually partial to red, but this blue guitar is mighty pretty.

I visited the Peabody Hotel in Memphis.

The hotel is famous for the ducks that live in the fountain in the lobby.

Each afternoon, the duckmaster comes down and marches the little flock from the lobby into the elevator and to their penthouse on the roof.

Not quite a “Next Time” list item, but I also had my shoes shined while I was at the hotel. I love having my shoes shined!

The Lorraine Motel has also been on my bucket list. People of a certain age will never forget what happened here. Not a joyous spot to visit, but definitely important.

It is also home to the National Civil Rights Museum. If you visit, you will be bowled over by the horrors of the struggle for equality.

Also on my “Next Time” list was Crater of Diamonds State Park. I wanted to go mining for diamonds!

I was a bit surprised when I saw that this was the diamond mine.

This was my “haul.”

The closest I got to finding a diamond was this tiny shard of glass. Oh, well…

I also revisited places I’ve been before.

I managed to snap this rainy photo of the St. Louis Arch as I crossed the Mississippi River.

I knew the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art was closed, but I stopped by to see if they had any interesting sculptures on the grounds. I had been there in the ’70s as part of a Girl Scout event.

I stopped by the Colored School in Neosho, Missouri. This is where George Washington Carver began his education. I worked on restoring the building to its original configuration as part of an HistoriCorps project in 2015.

I stayed at Toad Suck Campground near Conway, Arkansas again. I even had the same campsite!

You can’t beat those Army Corps of Engineer campgrounds for quality and (usually) great water views.

I had been to Hot Springs, Arkansas before. This time, I booked a bath at the Buckstaff Baths. It was a marvelous experience. If I had known how wonderful it would be, I would have put it on my “Next Time” list.

There were also some interesting things that kind of popped up.

I saw Bill Clinton’s birthplace home, in Hope, Arkansas.

The house Bill’s family moved to when his mother married his stepfather was also in Hope.

This house, in Hot Springs, is where he spent his teenaged years.

I came across this unusually modern cathedral in Jefferson City. I’d seen modern architecture used in churches before, but never anything like this in a cathedral.

It was also interesting because I happened in on a Knights of Columbus mass.

I was back in Lewis and Clark territory. I came upon this interesting sculpture grouping near the Missouri capitol.

While looking for interesting things to do in Kansas City, I found the National World War I Museum and Memorial. It was quite interesting.

I decided to have lunch in the cafeteria. There were several authentic dishes that the doughboys would’ve eaten. I selected “S.O.S.” which was served on a tin dish.

In Memphis, I came across Elvis.

I also drove out to take a peek at Graceland. At a minimum price for adults of $41 dollars, I wasn’t about to make a visit a priority.

While prowling around Nashville, I came across this Woolworth that had been converted to a restaurant. It was the site of sit-ins for civil rights back in the ’60s. I had a little refreshment there.

One last unexpected item before I summarize the trip.

I found Daniel Boone’s final resting place in Frankfort, Kentucky and I actually met a descendant of his while I was there.

And now, my trip by the numbers:

Number of states I slept in: six
Number of days in the trip: 24
Number of miles towing: 2750
Number of campgrounds: 8
Number of alternative lodgings: 1 night behind a Cracker Barrel (Crackerdocking, we call it) and 2 nights of home hospitality
Number of old friends I met up with: 8
Number of new friends I’ve kept in touch with since: 2

And finally…
Number of days until my next trip: 142

See you down the road!

Long ago, I remembered hearing about the recovery of the Steamboat Arabia that hit a snag and sank in the Missouri River in 1856 near Kansas City. What was amazing to me is that they found it buried 45 feet beneath a farmer’s field and about half a mile from where the river runs today.

This painting, by Gary R. Lucy, is titled THE ARABIA: The Afternoon of Her Last Voyage, 1856.

The Arabia, loaded down with whiskey and other frontier necessities, was on a routine run when it hit a snag.

Incidentally, snag refers to trees, branches and such that are found sunken in rivers and streams. In this case, The Arabia ran afoul of a dead sycamore. it ripped open the hull, which filled with water. The upper decks stayed above water, and the only casualty was a mule that was tied to some equipment and was forgotten in the rush to abandon ship.

Although the upper decks were above water the day it hit the snag, the boat sank into the mud that by the next day only the smokestack and the pilot house remained visible. Within a few days, these traces were also swept away.

I found the story of the recovery pretty incredible.

How would you know where to begin to look? In 1987, Bob Hawley and his sons, Greg and David, along with Jerry Mackey and David Lutrell and their families, set out to find the Arabia They used old maps and a proton magnetometer to decide on a probable location.

While the steamboat was found in Kansas, the museum is in Missouri.

They found what they thought was the site and commenced digging in November 1988. They dug until February 1987. They were digging with the landowner’s permission. Permission was granted with one condition: the fields had to be ready for spring planting.

This photo gives you a view into the pit. What a monumental task!

And then they had to get the field ready for spring planting! I wonder if they made the deadline?

Their original goal was to sell their discoveries. The historical importance of what they found buried under this Kansas farmer’s field made them change course. They started to plan a museum – a privately owned museum. Today it is still owned and operated by the Hawley family.

In all, they unearthed 200 tons of artifacts!

With the contents of the ship protected from light and oxygen, the artifacts they found were incredibly well preserved. Their website proclaims that the museum contains “… the largest single collection of pre-Civil War artifacts in the world.” The quantity of items is amazing – and they still have 60 tons of what they excavated yet to process.

Well, enough of the preamble. Let’s go inside.

Enter through the gift shop…that’s a variation on a theme!

The sign let me know I was heading in the right direction.

The steamboat was built in Brownsville, Pennsylvania on the Monongahela River. This hull originally travelled on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers before it came to the Missouri River.

“But, what did they find in the cargo?!” I can practically hear you shouting at your screens. Your wait is over!

They found beads.

And a coin that was newly minted when the boat sank.

Beads and buttons – from France, Italy, and Bohemia. (Bohemia is where Czechoslovakia is today.)

Those buttons were pretty snazzy! Each of the thousands and thousands of the buttons and beads had to be cleaned by hand.

Dishes, glassware and metalware were on board.

And printer’s type, bound for Council Bluffs, Iowa.

Coffin screws and candles.

Locks and keys and doorknobs.

Lots of keys and all sorts of metal products.

Wooden buckets, boxes, kegs, scales, rope

I liked the buckets, so here’s another shot of them.

Clothes pins – or clothes pegs, if you prefer. I assume that the brass springs had something to do with laundry. There are also sad irons in the photo. What is so sad about the irons? I knew at one time, but couldn’t find that fact rattling around in my memory. I looked it up.

“Sad” is an Old English word for “solid,” and the term “sad iron” is often used to distinguish the largest and heaviest of the flat irons, usually 5 to 9 pounds.”

Glass was on board the Arabia when it went down – this glass, in fact.

Tools. That poor saw looks kind of woe-begone, though.

Some lovely thimbles

The sign by the brown pants says:

Passenger’s Pants
This pair of pants belonged to a passenger aboard the Arabia. There were found with holes worn in both knees and turned inside-out, indicating he was trying to get extra use out of them. His other meager belongings included cooking supplies, a whale oil lamp, a spittoon and 25 cents.

In case you are reading this on a small screen, allow me to tell you what the sign by the shirt says.

“The heart appliqué on this shirt is possibly a symbol used by pro-slavery guerrillas in west Missouri during the period leading to the Civil War known as “Bleeding Kansas.” Referred to as “border ruffians,” they used intimidation and violence in an effort to affect territorial elections in Kansas during the 1850s. They reportedly wore shirts bearing symbols of hearts, anchors, or eagles.”

Back to the inventory…

Shoes and saddles

And rubber artifacts…

Combs

Shoes and bullwhips.

I’ll let you read the sign that was posted by the rubber items.

Here is some of the equipment used to preserve the rubber artifacts.

The promised us a view of the conservation lab – and there was even a conservator at work.

Here are some of the items in the 60 tons that are left to process

I would not look forward to having to conserve the nails in the two lumps on the left.

Not all the artifacts that were aboard survived in such pristine condition.

This china didn’t fare well.

The bottles also took a hit. If you look closely, though, you can see that five of these bottles survived without a scratch.

There was also an interesting display about how the boat actually worked. It could make about five miles an hour going upstream, and it burnt about 30 cords of wood a day. How much is a cord, you ask?

“A full cord is determined by the total cubic feet of firewood, not necessary the measurements of the stack. However, the 4′ x 4′ x 8′ shape is the most common.”

128 cubic feet are in a cord. 30 cords of wood would be 3,840 cubic feet a day. That is about the size of the largest school bus that you would see on the road today. I wonder what the infrastructure was for replenishing their fuel supply?

These buckets were also part of the working of the boat. The workers had to keep the Arabia looking good.

Oh, and you know the story about the mule being the sole casualty of the sinking of the Arabia? The owner was interviewed shortly after the sinking and he said that he tried to free his mule, but it was too stubborn and would not leave the sinking steamboat. The reins tell a different story. They were discovered firmly tied to this lumber mill jack.

With that, it was time to weigh anchor

and head off to my next adventure.