Oldest Existing Steam Boat Engine

There are lots of things to do in Kansas City. We chose to visit the Arabia steam boat museum. A bunch of guys got together and decided to dig up a steam boat that had sunk in the Missouri River. They had a lot to choose from. They started out digging up the first boat to sink — the “Missouri”. Above, you see the paddle wheel engine for this boat, which was built in 1818. (This is just the engine, and does not include the boilers and other stuff needed to generate the steam.) The picture looks strange because I had to paste two different pictures together to get the whole thing displayed. The big hunk of black metal on the right is the paddle wheel crank.

Arabia boilers and steam generator

Then they went back and dug up the Arabia. They chose this boat because it was well documented. Two special points of interest that lead to lots of information being available were that 1) Nobody died, and 2) 40 barrels of Kentucky’s best bourbon were aboard. As you can see, this is considerably later (the1850s). I don’t have a picture of the paddle wheel engines (there were two).

The snag that sunk the Arabia

The Arabia sunk when it hit a tree snag. This was the Arabia’s third year. An average steam boat on the Missouri River lasted 5 years. In addition to significant pieces of the boat, they recovered the better part of the 200 tons of cargo. This boat was basically a Walmart supply barge carrying all the goods western settlers would need for the year. It also had passengers — mostly women and chilkdren, coming to join the husband who had prepared a place out west. Much of the cargo is cleaned, preserved, and on display. It’s a fascinating look at life in the west in the 1850s. Danita and I went through the museum rather quickly and still took two hours looking at all the goods.

Sharp Rifles

Above are two Sharp rifles. They were so accurate that they became the origin of the word “sharpshooter”. To make a long story short, these rifles were impounded from an earlier trip on the river. (Rifle serial numbers match the ship’s manifest.) This was just before the civil war. Pro-slavery and abolitionist groups were fighting each outer in this part of the country back then.

After a fascinating time in the Arabia museum, we had a nice, boring drive to Abilene, KS.

Artist rendering of the sunken Arabia