Water Logged
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Last Day
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Day 21: Site Recon
By Dr. Annalies Corbin (9/23/02)
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The wreck site as seen today |
After driving all day Saturday from Wisconsin the team finally arrived in Missouri. After a good nights rest Dr. Corbin, Dr. Rodgers, Chris Valvano, and Andy Weir met with local archaeologist, Dr. Steve Dasovich, to take a first look at our next project. Drought conditions along the lower Missouri River valley during the past year caused the river level to drop. As a result, a long lost steamboat has emerged near the river bank. The wreck was last seen |
| in the mid 1960s but no scientific interest was taken. It is now be the subject of an ECU field project. Not yet identified, the stern-wheel steamer has the potential to tell us much about western river transportation. Long a favorite with historians, western river steamers were the everyday work-horse of the far west. Unfortunately, little is really known about how they were constructed. This vessel provides us with a unique opportunity to study mid to late nineteenth steamboat construction; the vessel is relatively intact and still has it's stern-wheel and rudders in place. The next two weeks will tell us a great deal. |
The wreck site looking forward |
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The port side of the exposed hull just forward of the boilers |
Tomorrow the full crew will get to see the wreck site. We will set our working baseline and begin our recon of the area around the wreck. The starboard side of the wreck is slightly submerged and the bow remains below the water level. We look forward to sharing the details of our work over the next two weeks. |
