The towboat C ity of Pittsburgh was built f or the Carnegie Steel Company at Ambers, Pennsylvania, in 1926 and ran on the Ohio and lower Mississippi. She was later sold to the Standard Oil Company ofLouisiana.
that the interpretation of the artifacts not be solely technical, that it provide a human element and that it articulate the values not only of the people who worked the ma'c hines, but of those who benefitted from that work. We found that the preservation of such large and significant artifacts provides a visible attraction for the museum . It also encourages an awareness of and participation in other less physically commanding aspects of river life. Havi ng drawn an audience into our midst, we can begin to deal with the history of the inland waterways through the story of the men and women who have shaped our past and motivate our present. And we can do this in a setting that befits our message , a shoreside facility that preserves not only things , but values. We have begun to develop a series of programs that introduce our visitors to the life of the rivers past and present. One example is the work of John Minehart , who builds birchbark canoes . In the 1880s, a Scotch trader learned the art of building birchbark canoes from the Chippewa Indians around Lake Itasca , the headwaters of the Mississippi , in northern Minnesota . In 1926, he passed on thi s learning to Jack Hafema who, in turn , taught Jack Minehart. We have received a grant to have Minehart build a birchbark canoe on the banks of the Mississippi with two apprentices . Visitors to the museum will be encouraged to have hands-on participation in the project while it is under way . Another forgotten trade of the upper Mississippi is the fisheries, which used to employ dozens of commercial fishermen who worked the rivers, mostly on an individual basis. Today, these fishermen, who fished the river for catfish , bullhead , sturgeon and clams, have been replaced by fish farms. The museum has acq uired a variety of old fis hing and clamming equipment and we hope to secure the services of a retired
commercial fisherman , Charlie Vandermillion , to explain thi s once integral, though small-scale, river industry to our visitors . Next year, we will be celebrating the bicentennial of Julien Dubuque's arrival here, and will have an array of exhibits depicting the life and activities of the town in that time , including fur-trapping and trading, lead mining, eighteenth-century agricultural techniques and of course transportation on the rivers. For this exhibit we hope to be working with the Province of Quebec , from which Dubuque came originally; with the Mesquak ie Indians, who have a settlement about 100 miles from Dubuque; as well as with the diverse industries with which we share the Ice Harbor. In implementing all these programs, we are trying to work in concert with the people who share our harbor and riverfront and who are represented on the Ice Harbor Development Committee. There is money to be made here by retailers and others catering to a tourist industry , that is true, but to no less an extent , there is a culture and a living history to be preserved as well. Both objectives can be accomplished. Many cities have not yet determined the objectives of waterfront development, much less determined whether these objectives should include historic preservation . In Dubuque , we feel that just as it is proper fo r a city to support libraries, parks, play ing field s and hi storic residences , it is proper to support waterfront revitalization that incorporates into its plans the existing fabric of the community. That is, to foster an economy that is bol stered by touri sm , but which has an inner character and its own assets . For these are positive values for the community, and they are values for the long term .
.t Mr. Enzler is Director of Museums, Dubuque County Historical Society, and Director of the National Rivers Hall ofFame.
The Anchor Line' s C ity of Monroe was one of the larger overnight packets on the lower Mississippi. Built in 1887 at the Howard Shipyards in Jeffersonvi lle, Indiana (now the Howard Riverboat Museum) , she was destroyed by a tornado at St. Louis in 1896.