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By Doug, July 5, 2009 03:12

Steamboat Arabia

Picture it in your mind. You’re traveling from St. Louis to Kansas City in 1856. It’s nighttime, the air is sticky, crickets are chirping, fireflies light up the shores and someone is playing a banjo in the distance. No, you aren’t in a scene from Deliverance and you aren’t going to be made to “squeal like a pig!” You’re on the steamboat Arabia, cruising up the mighty Missouri river on your way to a new life way out west in Missouri!

Then, you hit a submerged log, the boat sinks and all of a sudden it sucks to be you. You’re on one of more than 300 steamboats that have met a similar fate. The Missouri river is tough to navigate.

The steamboat Arabia was a side-wheel steamer built in Brownsville, PA in 1853. She measured 171 feet long and was capable of carrying 222 tons. Against the Missouri’s swift current, the twin 28-foot tall paddlewheels could push the steamboat upstream at a speed of over 5 miles an hour. The Arabia was considered a dependable vessel and soon gained a reputation for speed, safety and comfort.

More than 130 years after the wreck, David Hawley, along with his father Bob and brother Greg went looking for the remains of the steamboat and found them in a field, nearly ½ mile from the present day riverbank. The crew was able to salvage parts of the riverboat, personal belongings of the passengers (no passengers died during the accident), cargo and other treasures. Those treasures are now on display at the Steamboat Arabia near Kansas City, Missouri.