Snagboats of the Mississippi by Jack Custer
E
arl y I 9th-century steamboat travel was done on totally unimproved rivers. When the water gave out, steamboats had to lay up and river transport ceased. But when rises came, rivers flu shed out their de bri s and were soon fill ed with trees and other items. As a result, steamboat travel was o ften interrupted by floatin g obstacles ca ll ed "snags" that could block channels, pi erce hull s or tear sidewheels to pieces. The earl y steamboaters were a resourcefu l lot who solved pro bl ems in the most practical ways. A g iant of early steam boating was Henry Shreve, who is widely regarded as the man who advanced steamboat des ign by abandoning deep drau g ht hull s for s hallow draught hull s and pl ac ing eng ines on the main deck . Shreve's lesser-known contribution to steamboating was the development of the snag boat in the late 1820s. Shreve devised a twin-hulled steamboat equipped with winches and hoists that could lift large snags from the river. The crew would then cut them into small pieces and hurl them back into the ri ver where they wo uld cause no further problem. Shreve 's Heliopolis was a success and brought him much fame for her work at Plum Point in 1829 where by flatboaters, keel boate rs, and steamboat12
ers alike we re miracul ously freed from the menace of snags. Captain Shreve then won a contract from the US govern ment to remo ve snags and made much money in the process. The notorious Red River " raft" was Shreve 's next challenge . Thi s was a mass o f floatin g detritus that clogged the Red River for a stretch of more than 150 mil es in Loui siana and Arkansas. In 1833 Shreve went to work on thi s infamous raft with several snagboats. It took five years to c lear out the raft, but it wou ld spontaneously regenerate. It was not until 1880 that the raft was finall y and perm anentl y rem oved . Shreve's workers camped in the wilderness alongside the Red Ri ve r whi le they worked. The site of their main camp is now Shreveport, Loui siana. The snagboat's deve lopment is mini mally chronic led . It appears that the resourceful Shreve came up with such a practi ca l proto type th a t its des ig n changed little over the decades. The standard snagboat was a sidewheeler with catamaran hulls, wh ich gave the snagboat the stability it needed to use its winches , spars and other equipment to pull bi g snags from the rivers. Although we have few photographs of snagboats prior to the 1870s, it appears that they gained a nearly uniform design
everywhere, with both sidewheel and sternwheel snagboats in use in the 1870s. Although their exteriors were frequentl y photographed in the 19th century, there are no decent interior photos of the ir cabin s or work spaces. Thi s is most unfortunate, because snagboats were noted for their large lav ishl y appointed cabins. And the wea lth of machinery on their main decks wou ld have been the envy of any sawmill owner. Through an act of Congress in 1900, snagboats became a dream retirement position for rivermen who could maneuver their way into such appo intments. The crews on snagboats worked for eight hours a day , from 8:00 AM to 4 :00 PM . One snagboat was stationed at St. Loui s and the other at New Orleans. They would starttheiroperations in Apri l and run through August, with a lay-up for winter. In later years snagboats were required to make two trips a year, and thi s shortened their lay- up time. Snagboating was never done in a hurry. For example, it would typically take a snagboat 34 days to run between Memphi s and Cairo, a two-day run for most steamboats. Snagboats tended to have big crews. They had huge main cabins and there was a private cabin for each crewman. The chief engi neer had two strikers (unSEA HISTORY 74, SUMMER 1995