Time Machine: The Tennessee

CEDAR RAPIDS - A search through a box in The Gazette's archives revealed a packet of old negatives labeled simply, 'The Tennessee, Nov. 7/54.” Inside were seven shots of a towboat on a river.

The Tennessee was a steam-powered towboat in 1954, a rarity at that time for tows on the Upper Mississippi. By then, most towboats were diesel powered. It also was one of the largest.

Steamboat cargo travel on the river began in 1823 with the stern-wheeler Virginia. The Virginia carried military supplies and passengers from St. Louis to the St. Peter River in Minnesota in 20 days. For the next 40 years, steamboats carried more than 472 million pounds of lead from the Galena-Dubuque area. Steamboats began pushing logs on the river in 1869, when a log raft owned by Frederick Weyerhauser was towed to a Clinton sawmill.

With speedy shipments being a priority, steamboats saved time on their trips by taking on fuel under steam. A boat headed downstream would come close to the riverbank and take a lumberyard barge onside. Workers would pitch the wood into the steamer's hold. When they were done, the barge would be set loose and pulled into another lumberyard, where it would be reloaded and wait for another steamer headed upstream.

When the northern forests began to become depleted, the steamers' grain barges replaced wood on the river. The Diamond Jo Reynolds Line was founded expressly for this purpose. When railroads began shipping grain, grain centers shifted from the river cities of St. Louis and New Orleans to Chicago and Milwaukee.

The rivers carried mostly excursion boats until the large, mostly diesel-powered steamers were built.

The Tennessee was built in 1930 by Dravo Corp., a shipbuilder at Neville Island shipyard in Pittsburgh. It was owned by the Mississippi Valley Barge Line Co.

The Tennessee was 191 feet long and 41 feet wide and was rated to develop 2,140 horsepower. It had a steel hull and twin screws, or propellers, on either side of the keel. A Gazette photographer and reporter traveled to the Mississippi River near Guttenberg in November 1954 to see it pushing 13 coal and petroleum-loaded barges upstream, its two tall smokestacks and four steam vent pipes belching smoke and steam into the air.

The heydays of steam commerce on the river were long over, so this was a sight to see, especially since the Tennessee was one of the largest tows operating on the Upper Mississippi. Its cargo was estimated at 17,800 tons. A Rock Island Railroad train consisting of 140 cars carrying 50 tons each would move just 7,000 tons in 1954.

In contrast, the average packet steamers of 1855 to 1875 carried about 700 tons per trip. The Tennessee's load would have required more than 25 of the 19th century riverboats.

By 1954, barges were accustomed to passing through the Mississippi River's system of locks, which were constructed in the 1930s.

The Tennessee's tow was so large, it had to be 'double-locked” through the 400-foot-long facility. The front end of the tow was pushed through the lock and the towboat backed out. The first set of barges was pulled through with winches. Then the towboat and remaining barges locked through and the two sections were joined together for the next leg of the trip upstream.

When The Gazette photographer captured the Tennessee on the water, there was probably less than a month left for river traffic on the Upper Missisippi before the river started to freeze.

In 1964, the Tennessee was remodeled at the Parker Bros. Shipyard in Houston. Its hull was shortened to 182 feet, steam engines were replaced with 4,000 total horsepower diesels, and it was renamed the 'Texas.” It then became a tramp-line tow on the lower Mississippi, picking up jobs whenever they were available. The Texas sailed for 20 more years before it was taken out of service.

Average towboats today run from nearly 120 feet long by 30 feet wide to more than 200 feet long and 45 feet wide. Barges average 1,500 tons of cargo, usually three abreast and five long.

Today, the largest towboat operating on the Mississippi is the 'M/V Mississippi,” a combination working towboat and passenger boat. The 6,300 horsepower diesel vessel is 241 feet long and 58 feet wide. It also has 22 staterooms as well as dining and conference rooms. It works mainly on the lower Mississippi.