The Cincinnati Enquirer from Cincinnati, Ohio • Page 157

Sunday, October 1 1,1 992 THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER Tall StacksPage 5 DUE TO THE OVERWHELMING SUCCESS OF LAST WEEKEND'S FACTORY DIRECT TRUCKLOAD SPA SALE THIS SALE WILL BE HELD OVER FOR A SECOND SMASH WEEKEND DON'T MISS Steamboats play vital part in Cincinnati's river history Ohio's waters continue to define, nurture city Ohio River history mm i j. I I NO PAYMENTS- mi 6 MONTHS SAME AS NO INTEREST TIL APRIL IF: Hen Enquirer file photo Steamboats were the packhorses of the river. This file photo shows a steamboat packed to the pilothouse with bales of cotton. it PRODIGY 4 Pon CLASSIC 5 Person 3fl flAY TflTAI I SOVEREIGN 4-5 Person HP SIZE: 29" 295 GALLONS 300 GALLONS SIZE: 92VX 91VX 31" 325 GALLONS Ull I I I I 1 ha SATISFACTION 30 Day-Full Refund Policy Monthly Electrical Cost of Operation-Less than $15 Full 5-Year Parts Labor Warranty GRANDEE JETSETTER 2 Person HIGHLIFE pSn 1 "jJPPI UlPLSiMMatSN HIGH LIFE SIZE: 99VX 36Vi" SIZE: 27Vi" 205 GALLONS SIZE: 34" 415 GALLONS 500 GALLONS expanded east-west rail routes. 1861: Civil War curtails Cincinnati's river trade.

Railroads begin to bypass the city. 1867: Suspension Bridge opens. Riverfront area becomes center of transportation and warehousing. 1917-1918: Severe snow and ice block river, damaging many boats. 1928: First of 49 navigation dams completed.

As a result, river traffic doubles. 1937: Worst flood in Cincinnati history. River stands at record-breaking 80 feet 28 feet above flood stage. Damage to city's lowlands estimated at $36 million; about 13 of city under water. 1968: Delta Queen receives first exemption from federal Safety-at-Sea laws (wooden construction was considered a fire hazard) so it can continue overnight excursions.

1976: The Mississippi Queen, a modern steamboat, takes maiden voyage. 1988: First Tall Stacks is largest assembly of steamboats in Cincinnati since 1929. 1992: Larger gathering 17 steamboats for Tall Stacks '92. Source: Enquirer research by Randy McNutt 400,000 years ago: Ancient Ohio River dammed by Illinois Glacier, forming giant lake. 17,000 years ago: Wisconsin Glacier blocks the ancient river, creating "new" Ohio.

1788: Settlers aboard keelboats and flatboats arrive in cove on river and establish Losantiville. 1789: Federals erect Fort Washington near river. Influx of settlers begins. Settlement will become Cincinnati. 1811: First steamboat passes the city.

1816: Launching of the Vesta, first steamboat built in Cincinnati. 1820: Keelboats fade as steamboats dominate river. 1826: Cincinnati establishes itself as a steamboat center. Of 143 steamboats operating on the Ohio, 48 were built in Cincinnati. 1830: New turnpike system brings more produce to Cincinnati and bolsters its river trade.

1845: Miami and Erie Canal completed, linking Cincinnati and Ohio River with Toledo and Lake Erie. Farmers and merchants now send goods directly to Cincinnati for shipping to West and South. 1851: New Cincinnati, Hamilton Dayton Railroad ends at waterfront, further boosting Cincinnati's river trade. The next year, 22,478 passengers arrive by boat. 1857: Ohio River transportation challenged by TflNfll T0NDI MAN0RA KHYBER SIZE: 75'jX BM'V' TmEH RIVER 1 ---II gu-4tr BT, m.

uii.w hii.w 1 ff "fWn SIZE: 59'VX 29' pi mini miii' wiLiXJUPllil. Biaai((jj(alj FACTORY 1ST. THOMAS I PENTHOUSE 16 JET SPA BY RANDY McNUTT The Cincinnati Enquirer The Ohio River will always belong to Cincinnati, to the broad vistas of Mount Lookout, Mount Adams and Mount Echo and to its old levee and landing. Other towns may occupy space on the river's banks, but Cincinnati is different. It was born of the Ohio.

Nurtured by it, sustained by it, Cincinnati is somehow a part of what 17th-century French explorers called la belle riviere the beautiful river. Even now, with Cincinnati's varied industries, the Ohio dominates images and interests of the city. Cincinnati drinks its water, plays on and near it, ships cargo to the world on it, and photographs its endless bends and turns. They are one, river and city. Steamboat popular again "The Ohio was critical to Cincinnati's founding," said Jonathan Dembo, archivist for the Cincinnati Historical Society.

"Actually, the river is the reason the city is here. Settlers stopped and grew crops and built boats to go to New Orleans. Today, river traffic is bigger than ever in dollar amount, although it has been surpassed by other forms of transportation. But the river's influence and importance remains." It should come as no surprise, then, that the venerable steamboat tall stacks and all is increasingly regaining popularity in Cincinnati. Perhaps no other invention made such a long-lasting impact on one city during such a brief period.

And although steamboats are mostly gone from the river now, their work does not go unappreciated. Barge, tug take over Only a few decades ago, the country seemed to forget the steamboat. The river became almost the exclusive domain of barge and tug. Faced with tough new government fire-safety regulations passed in 1966, the boats appeared headed for extinction. Then in 1968, Congress exempted the wooden Delta Queen, after receiving 250,000 letters protesting a forced scrapping.

Oddly enough, when the city's steam-powered future first fired up at 5 p.m. Oct. 27, 1811, a local newspaper devoted only one sentence to it. The news, ignored by many, was that a hunk of wood and iron christened the New Orleans, the first steamboat on the western river, had belched black smoke as it churned toward Louisville at speeds of 8 to 12mph. In 1811, nobody could have predicted how much the river and the steamboat would ultimately mean to Cincinnati.

After all, the era of the keelboat a shallow covered riverboat that was rowed, poled or towed up and down river seemed to be only starting. Losantiville is born Only 25 years earlier, pioneers on their way west had started drifting down the Ohio in flatboats and keelboats. At a sheltered location, they stopped and built a town named Losantiville, which soon became Cincinnati. Because of the river traffic, the town grew. Seeking more river trade in the 1820s, city leaders expanded their Public Landing, where freight was unloaded and passengers embarked and disembarked.

It stood on the present site of Riverfront Stadium. "The steamboat put Cincinnati on the map and made the city grow more," said Jim Coomer, a former river pilot, the son and grandson of steamboat pilots and a marine historian for the Cincinnati Historical Society. "We were the Phoenicians of the United States at one time. The steamboat enabled us to send our goods and products far afield." Lightweight but sturdy steamboats, the packhorses of the river, were built in Cincinnati's East End and were designed to carry everything from produce to pianos. Anything.

For example, the Henry Frank once set a record by carrying 9,226 bales of cotton. Its captain wrote the number in large letters on a board placed near the pilothouse and commissioned a photograph taken that day. Crammed stem to stern, the crowded boat looked like a floating sandbag. Only its tall, black stacks, white pilothouse and ropes poked above the wall of. I 1 I SIZE: 30" I SIZE: 83" 33" I SIZE: 53XM 310 GALLONS 300 GALLONS 1B0jjALL0NS p3J IBAYPORT 68 I OREGON I CAPTIVA 5 HORSEPOWER HiU IF XllllirUlllV Mir SYSTEM I "Miiiiijr SIZE: 33" 415 GALLONS SIZE: 92 SIZE: 82VT'X 34" 375 GALLONS SAVE $1500 15 GALLONS mm imam 12000 IS" I 9000 1000 2Person rFACTORY 111 IUL fWn KM Mil SAVE $1500 SIZE: 79" 30" SIZE: 83 33" SIZE: 24" 180 GALLONS to Cincinnati.

Along the way, they'd pick corn, potatoes and beans near the shore for dinner, then toss dynamite overboard and take what fish they wanted. By the 1920s, the river's character was changing. The steamboat era was dying through fire, ice and economics. The Mary Houston, a typical big packet that ran the river for almost 30 years, met her end in an ice gorge in 1893. (She was relatively old.

In the 19th century, Coomer said, the average life span of a steamboat was only about 3 years.) In 1918, a number of boats were crushed in ice gorges. In 1922, fires destroyed more of them. Trucks and automobiles were taking freight and passengers to destinations along the Ohio, and the railroad was squeezing river trade even tighter. In the fall of 1947, the fourth Island Queen, a sentimental favorite in Cincinnati that made the passenger run from the Public Landing to Coney Island and back, was destroyed by fire while docked in Pittsburgh. The river was losing its big boats.

310 GALLONS 15000 18000 8Person 16000 68Person ill bales. Lavish touches At the height of the riverboat's reign, in the autumn of 1848, two photographers sat on Newport rooftops to shoot a panoramic daguerreotype that defined Cincinnati's burgeoning riverfront: about 16 steamboats, three deep, were tied to thick iron rings anchored into the ground. "Cincinnati's waterfront was lined with shipbuilding shops and yards," said George Roth who wrote in The River Book: Cincinnati and the Ohio. "Local draftsmen and artisans designed and fabricated the hulls and deck structures, also the appointments for the vessels, boilers, engines, iron work, carpentry, millwork, stained glass and the like. "Following 1850, these packets became more and more grand.

There was a vital rivalry to outdo a competitive steamboat line in the comfort, elegance, cuisine and architectural embellishment. Hardly an interior surface, column, bracket, rail, door or panel escaped the lavish touch of the carpenter, millwright and decorator." In the 1860s, the Civil War curtailed Cincinnati's riverboat commerce, and when the fighting was over, the western frontier had moved even farther away from the city. But the river's importance was not greatly diminished. Some families earned their livelihoods on it for generations. Starting with Sam Beatty in the 1830s, the Beatty family piloted boats past Cincinnati for over a century.

5 HORSEPOWER 16 Jet System SIZE: 88' 33" 415 GALLONS SIZE: 34" 415 GALLONS SIZE: 34" 375 GALLONS fillet Hfjaia3 n-i-m jsm- -1, CANOPIES COMMERCIAL 'TT BEDS Only 6 AVAILABLE 1 Leisure Bay SAUNAS AVAILABLE IN 2 PERSON TO 6 PERSON MODELS I 0 SAVE $300 $300 to $1000! Long live the Queen In 1958, another photographer climbed a Newport rooftop to shoot another panoramic, defining scene of Cincinnati's riverfront. Conspicuous this time were bridges connecting Ohio and Kentucky, dozens of pleasure boats, and a skyline of concrete and steel. But most conspicuous, perhaps, was the lack of steamboats only one, the Delta Queen, graced the shore that day. It will return for Tall Stacks '92 this week, along with 16 others, including the $27 million Mississippi Queen, a modern riverboat that marries nostalgia and convenience. "Cincinnati's river traffic is still growing, although it may not be quite the lifeblood it was when the city was just getting a foothold," Coomer said.

"Nowadays, Cincinnati is here to stay." So are the big boats. $683 to SALE BEINGCONDUCTED I-Z75 i0o 563-0101 Wilion't Captain watches river In the mid-20th century, Capt. John Beatty has become synonymous with river life. He watched as the Ohio treacherously shallow and flood-prone in places was tamed by locks and dams in the '30s and '40s. From his home in Warsaw, he still watches the river flow.

As a boy in the early 1900s, Beatty's father and crew used to take him by log raft from Big Sandy River in eastern Kentucky 10725 Reading Road II Vl GlMdlMMIIIW M. ffIrtir- in tvenaaie, unio Of Cincinnati Jfejra it. OPEN DAILY 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. SATURDAY 10 a.m.

to 5 p.m. SUNDAY 12 noon to 5 p.m..