We went up to LeClaire Iowa to do some shopping and sightseeing. The Wombie and I went over to the Buffalo Bill Museum to see the barge Lone Star. Why the old bage is with Buffalo Bill is anyone's guess but the place is a kind of conglomeration of interesting local stuff, like Indian relics, and even some inventor named James Ryan who invented the first flight recorder, seat belts, and crash bumpers.
But it was the Lone Star that we really were interested in.
Lone Star Steamer was built in 1869 at Lyons, Iowa for Captain Sam Mitchell. He ran the Davenport to Buffalo, Iowa trade. The boat was not very fast, had limited accommodations, and was withdrawn at the end of the second season. In November 1876 Captain Mitchell sold her to Goss & Company, Sand Dealers in Davenport. They made a towboat of her. It originally was built as a wooden hull, wood burning, side-wheeler; worked as a barge pushing logs down the river. It was 28 tons; 68.4x19.3x3.2.
In 1899-1900 it was remodeled at Kalke Boat Yard in Rock Island, IL at which time she was probably changed to a coal fired steamer and it was probably then that the high-pressure tubular boilers were added. The "Texas" upper deck and four cabins of the crew were added in 1922. Twin tubular boilers, condensing engine 5 ft stroke, mud drum, steam powered wench and steam powered dredging equipment. Somewhere along the line the addition of "Monkey Rudders" were placed behind the paddle wheel, which was a great improvement when backing the boat.
The Lone Star has two sets of small rudders, one-wheel operated and one foot operated. One is steel and one is wood. The boat ran with a four man working crew - Captain, engineer, fireman, and one deckhand. It carried eight people aboard for a total crew, four working and four sleeping. The Lone Star did have a woman cook; she was usually the Captain's wife.
It was last used as a sand dredge working boat. It had an usually long river life of 99 years, most wood hull boats had a life of around 35 years, then they usually catch on fire from sparks. Its last run on the Mississippi was November 1967. It has been dry docked in LeClaire since 1968. Nowadays the tugs are steel hulls and oil burning.
Before it was housed in an enclosed, temperature-controlled building, it sat outside for years. Gee, the make-shift lifts look like something the Wombie and I would do.
Boiler and Engine room.
A valve atop the boiler.
Kitchen area not far from the boilers.
Another pic of the far side piston. Hmmm. Let's see. Would that be starboard or port? Answer: starboard is right side facing forward and port is left side. Captain Herb and maybe even Capt Ernie would be proud of me. (Of course I had to look it up.)
Fuse boxes and another gauge close by. Gauge is a strangely constructed word, isn't it?
Megaphone or blowhorn (I wonder which one?) to relay orders to engine room. The lower dial is the one for movies when you are either going too deep or worried the boilers or the dilithiom crystals are going to explode.
This is the bell that the captain would ring to get the attention of the engineer down below.
This reminds me of one of my favorite reminders: every point in history was "state-of-the-art". It's kind of hard to imagine but this was the cutting edge of technology at one time.
The paddlewheel looked like it was partly newer with planking and others looked like it was much older.
Imagine climbing into the wheelhouse and looking out at the wide river as the sun is coming up through the glassed walls and steering this baby to its next job.
This old smokestack is now EPA friendly. Take a look at the last picture in this essay to see what kind of smokescreen this laid along the river. What a sight that must have been.
Crew quarters just behind the wheelhouse. The nice thing about this display is it doesn't look like they have attempted to "imagine" the way it was - looks like they have left it as is.
Here area couple of pictures of the wheelhouse. It's hard to see but the lever right in the center of the wheel is the "Engine Room Gong". The captain would hit this devise, the bell would ring below and they would then communicate whatever orders for the engine speed.
The longer swivel lever is the rudder control.
This is the captain's quarters. As Spartan as the crew's except this one has an old desk.
Applause again for not trying to restore the whole boat - but let its originality shine through.
It was a working boat, not designed for pleasure. It was a barge with all that that means. Here we see the light and whistle.
I wonder how responsive this big wheel was? I wonder when the wooden ship wheel companies realized they were in a dead end industry? Probably around the same time the CEO of the Acme Buggy Whip's R Us did.
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