The Tombigbee River Steamboats: Rollodores, Dead Heads and Side-Wheelers

Rufus Ward

• Publisher: The History Press
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN:
  9781596292857
• eBook ISBN:
  9781614231219
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

The Tombigbee River flows through the history of Alabama and Mississippi, connecting the Black Prairie cotton belt of northeast Mississippi and west Alabama to Mobile and the Gulf of Mexico. In the early 1800s, it became the regional artery of commerce and trade, with steamboats carrying cotton to the port of Mobile and then returning upriver with farm supplies and consumer goods. Today, the "rollodores," who rolled cotton bales down slides to the decks of boats; the sunken logs, or "dead heads," that could sink a boat if struck; and the "side-wheeler" model steamboats have all but vanished. The Tombigbee River Steamboats brings this forgotten era back to life through accounts of the steamboats, their crews and their trials, such as the haunting story of the steamer Eliza Battle, which burned and sank on a freezing, flooded river.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Content
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: The Tombigbee River
• Chapter 1. The Beginnings: Pirogues, Keelboats and Flats
• Chapter 2. The First Steamboats
• Chapter 3. Evolution of the Tombigbee Steamboat
• Chapter 4. The Crews
• Chapter 5. Floating Palaces
• Chapter 6. The Eliza Battle
• Chapter 7. War Time and the Alice Vivian
• Chapter 8. Railroads and Revival
• Chapter 9. Vienna and the Turn of the Century
• Chapter 10. End of an Era
• Appendix 1. Trip Statement of the Steamer Liberty
• Appendix 2. The 1877–1881 Hargrove Shipping Records
• Appendix 3. Tombigbee Drawbridges
• Appendix 4. A Directory of Steamboats on the Upper Tombigbee
• Appendix 5. Important Landings on the Little Tombigbee
• Notes
• Bibliography
• About the Author