NEW IPO Logo - by Charles Larry Home Search Browse About IPO Staff Links

The end of the
steamboat era
in Jackson County

ih030604-1.jpg
by Valerie Glidehaus, Robert Morefield, and Cliff Swafford

Jackson County has a long and interesting history of river traffic, including packet steamboats operating on the Mississippi River. The historic period of wooden-hulled passenger packet steamers came to an end at 2:20 a.m. on Sunday, May 18, 1947, when the once proud river queen, Golden Eagle, ran aground on the west bank of Grand Tower Island.

The Golden Eagle had begun its final journey at St. Louis at 7:45 p.m. on Saturday evening, carrying 45 passengers and 47 crew members on its maiden run for the season. The ship was enroute to Nashville, Tennessee, and would have continued down the Mississippi to the Ohio River, then gone 12 miles up the Ohio and, finally followed the Cumberland River to Nashville on a round-trip voyage that was to have lasted six days.

Captain E. Nathan Smith of St. Louis said that some fault, which put the steering apparatus out of commission caused the big boat to plow into the rock-ribbed bank about one-mile below the town of Grand Tower. The Eagle's steering was steam-operated with two handles. There were unconfirmed reports that a broken steering cable was responsible for the failure of the apparatus. When the packet ground into the bank, a hole estimated at five-feet square was knocked into its hull. Thomas Crane, a veteran of 40 years on the river, was the boat's carpenter. He said he was in the hold three minutes after she hit, and found water waist deep at the time.

Fortunately, the passengers and crew were able to disembark uninjured after the accident.

William J. Hess of East St. Louis, a veteran of 45 years on the river, said there was no panic among the passengers. Those who expressed anxiety were led to the rail and shown by flashlight that the boat was near the shore. Hess said the passengers were given ample time to pack their belongings and to dress before orderly debarkation. The passengers congregated around a roaring bonfire before they were brought ashore at Grand Tower by an oil tug and two barges.

Charlie Jenkins of Grand Tower, formerly of Murphysburo, recalled a steamboat disaster 40 years earlier at Brunkhorst Landing about five miles about Grand Tower, when 62 people were drowned. Jenkins recalled that bodies were recovered as far below as Grand Tower two months afterwards.

The disaster of the Golden Eagle ended a long-standing speed dispute between the only two wooden hulled river packets that remained in existence in 1947. The Golden Eagle's sister packet, the Gordon Greene, operated on the Ohio River out of Cincinnati. The two were scheduled for a race from St. Louis to St. Paul, Minnesota, on June 10, 1947.

"Bodies were
recovered as far
below as Grand
Tower two months
afterwards."

The Golden Eagle, formerly named the William Garig, was built in 1903, at Jeffersonville as a cotton boat, and in 1918 was made into a packet in St. Louis. She was converted to a tourist boat in 1937.In 1941, the vessel sank at Chester. A coffer dam was built around her and the boat was floated to Paducah, where a new bottom was constructed. The Golden Eagle had been remodeled shortly before its final voyage at an estimated cost of between $8,000 and $12,000.

6 | Illinois Heritage


|Home| |Search| |Back to Periodicals Available| |Table of Contents| |Back to Illinois Heritage 2004|
Illinois Periodicals Online (IPO) is a digital imaging project at the Northern Illinois University Libraries funded by the Illinois State Library