116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
History Happenings: Riverboats
They once plied the Cedar, Iowa rivers
This bird's-eye-view map of Iowa City, from around 1868, was created by artist Albert Ruger. Steamboats made occasional trips up the Iowa River and Cedar River from the 1840s through the 1860s before railroads offered a more reliable mode of transport.
This article appeared in The Cedar Rapids Evening Gazette on Saturday, Jan. 31, 1903.
“To the average citizen of the Cedar Rapids of today, the statement will come as a revelation that the time has been when the Cedar River was a navigable stream, that there was transportation by water from St. Louis via the Mississippi, Iowa and Cedar rivers and that steamers of big tonnage and heavy horse power traversed the waters between St. Louis, Mo., and Cedar Rapids, Iowa.”
The diction of the above quote aside, it probably could appear in The Gazette today and still be true. Certainly, the “average citizens” who write this column were surprised to learn that “steamers of big tonnage and heavy horse power” were once seen regularly in the Cedar River.
The article from which our opening quote was taken appeared in The Cedar Rapids Evening Gazette on Saturday, Jan. 31, 1903. It was titled “Early Steamboating on the Cedar River,” and the article’s subhead made it clear that this article was looking back toward days of yore: “Some Interesting Reminiscences Related by an Old Time Pilot. Willis Vance — Days When Big Boats Landed Here.”
The Black Hawk
In his reminiscences, Vance described a boat known as the Black Hawk, where he got his first experience navigating the Cedar River in 1858 after arriving in Cedar Rapids a decade before aboard the Uncle Toby.
As the Black Hawk’s name suggests, it was built to accommodate trade between Cedar Rapids and Waterloo — the latter, of course, being located in Black Hawk County (the county came into being in 1843).
We should note that the boat originally was christened the Export in 1858. It was built for a company organized by George Greene, one of Cedar Rapids’ founding figures, and built by the Freeman Smith Co. from lumber sawed by Snouffer & Watrous in Bever Park.
The boat eventually known as the Black Hawk had a 13-foot beam and was 114 feet in length. There was a single deck so the boat was short enough to run under a wagon bridge across the Cedar River at Vinton.
Thirty to 40 passengers could ride in the boat’s cabin, and another 200 could be crowded on the deck. The boat’s tonnage was 125, and the locomotive tubular boiler — consisting of 49 flues — provided steam for a 100 horsepower engine.
According to the article, the Black Hawk could make three or four round trips per week between Cedar Rapids and Waterloo, depending on water levels.
“Pilot Vance said that navigation of the Cedar north of here was accompanied often by many delays and vexations.” A sandbar, for example, could cause a delay of several hours.
“There were no other boats to give the signal of ‘distress’ to, so the Black Hawk had to back off, spar over the low places, shift the freight from one side to the other and get out of shallow water the best way she could.”
The boat ran at night when traveling toward Waterloo, but not on the return trip due to the river’s current.
The Evening Gazette article concluded, “Steamboat traffic on the Cedar is now but a memory. It scarcely seems as we view the shallow stream of today that it could have been but it was.”
Other boats
Our research — aided by Pete Looney (author of “Lost Cedar Rapids”) and The Gazette’s Mary Sharp — turned up a number of other boats that once plied the Cedar River.
These include an excursion boat known as the Carrie Wallace, which the Cedar Rapids Times called out in its “mere mention” column in 1879; the Parlor City, which Thomas Kelty, a former saloon-owner who appears to have been something of a rabble rouser, purchased in 1899; and the Kapa Ann, which an organization known as Youth Council purchased in 1967.
The Kapa Ann was the site of dances on Saturday nights and boasted a coffeehouse and snack bar on Wednesday nights.
According to a feature in the Sunday, July 16, 1967, edition of The Gazette, “The 75 Youth Council members organize the functions on the boat, which are always chaperoned by parents of the members. Any high school student in the area may join the Kapa Ann Klub in order to attend the events on the boat.”
We would love to hear from anyone who has memories of the Kapa Ann. If you have a story to share, please write to us at historicalclines@gmail.com.
Before we go, a quick correction to our March column: Monys A. Hagen, author of “The Worldly Game: The Story of Baseball in the Amana Colonies,” is female. An editor mistakenly called her a male. We apologize and recommend her book, a delight for baseball fans.
Jessica Cline is a Leadership & Character Scholar at Wake Forest University. Her dad, Rob Cline, is not a scholar of any kind. They write this monthly column for The History Center. Comments: HistoricalClines@gmail.com
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