They were marvelous contraptions, a grand way to travel - until the river reached up, took hold, and refused to let go.

BY MARITA PLACEK

FALL 2004.7 LINT PINKELMAN isn't

likely to forget March 12, 2004. That's the day the smiled and favored him with a glimpse into the depthsof its past. Pinkelman, a young farmer from Hartington, wasdrifting along with the current, enjoying his first spring outing on the Missouri, whenhe cameupon an object sticking out of the water on the south side of Goat Island. He thought he'd found parts of an old bridge at first, but a closerinspection revealed the skeletonof a riverboat partially buried in the sand. Only a portion of the boat wasvisible so it was difficult to estimate the size; he thought it might be any- where from 100-160 feet long, and about 30 feet wide. A huge cottonwood stumpwas at the bow of the boat, which may offer a clue to its demise. "It looks like it hit a big snagin the river, went down, and never Lookingover th"e'remainsoj the Natural Resources,Larry Bradley, pro- riverboat are,back to front: Brad Goeden, fessor of anthropology, and Brian moved again," Clint says. Harvesting Delon Kathol and Clint Pinkelman. trees along the river's edge to fuel the Molyneaux,director of the Archaeology steamboatboilers probably createdthat Department, from the University of particular snag.When the river channel convincingothers. "Many peopledidn't South Dakota at Vermilion. The group shifred,stumps were left to lurk beneath believe me when I tried to tell them was dismayed to find the river had the surfaceand tear through the hulls of what I found," he says.The following already risen far enough to cover the unsuspectingboats. Other snagswere Sundaysome of Clint's cousinsaccom- remains. They used a handheld Global trees which fell into the river when the panied him to seeth~ remainsfor them- Positioning System ( GPS) receiver to record the coordinates so they could bank was undercut during flooding. selves.They took a cameraalong and These were then carried downriver by snapped pictures of corroded metal relocatethe site. Although the teamwas thrilled by the the current until they sunk or hung up pieces,the timbers (ribs) of the wooden opportunity to view the skeletal on a sandbar. hull and the snagit hit. remains,they were not that surprisedto Clint called his parents, Rick and Now that they had actually seenthe Mary Pinkelman,but it was too late in riverboat, it had their full attention. hear of Pinkelman'sdiscovery. Bradley and Molyneaux had discovereda 26- the day for them to go seethe riverboat. They researchedinformation online to foot timber a mile or two belowthe site While they believedhim, he had trouble determinewhich of the twelve wrecked riverboats betweenYankton and in the fall of 2003. They believedit was City this one might be. A promising usedto hold the paddlewheel of a river- lead showed it might be the North boat, and had searchedfor the craft it Alabama,which was returning from a came from without success,As for the trip to the Montana gold fields wreck's identity, they didn't agree with when it struck a snagand sankon Clint's contention that it is the North October 27, 1870. The captain Alabama. Their theory is that the was ,one of the best Alabama went down much closer to known and sought aftercaptains Vermillion. A bend just southwestof on the Mighty Mo. They also there was named North Alabama after discovered the Alabama had the accident,but the bend and the river surfacedin 1906, and again in havemoved so much sincethat time no 1934. one knows for surewhere those remains Shortly after Clint discovered the lay. They do agreethe boatwas a dou- wreck, he returned to the site with ble-rudder paddle-wheelboat from the a boilerdool; was one of the manyrelics Derrick lies and Tim Cowman from the late 1800s, however. "What's interest- Pinkelmanfound with theboat. S.D. Department of Environment and ing about the wreckis that the boat did-

8 .LIVING HERE

C n't appear to be salvaged," Bradley says. "I don't know why [it wasn't sal- vaged], but it's a good bet that it was- n't worth the cost," says Jim Peterson, a retired professor from USD. "I don't CARPET know what her cargo was, if any. VINYLFLOORING Salvage is usually a very costly thing, and the rewards are uncertain at best. LllMINATE Any salvage effort would be expensive." WOOD FLOORING One theory has it that this could be the remains of a military steamboat, the CERAMICTILE MO1TOW,a ferry built in Brownsville, PORCELAINTILE Pennsylvania. When the MO1TOWarrived at Atchison, Kansas, in 1861, the gov- KITCHENAND BATHCABINETS ernment used it to send supplies upriv- er to Ft. Randall. Piloted by "Bill" WINDOW Reed, under Captain Challiss, the boat TREATMENTS made it to within seventy miles of WALLPAPER Yankton, then ran into a snag and sank. Only the machinery was saved. Professor Bradley is working on the theory that perhaps this is the MO1TOW. Beyond its identity, there also arises the question of the wreck's ownership. Will it belong to Pinkelman, who found it? Is the wreck considered part of the Interior Design Showroom river or part of the land? Which state 1205Broadway. Yankton, South Dakota. (605)665-9728 Monday-Friday9 am-5:30 pm, Saturday 9 am-3 pm has the better claim? Nebraska law says the state extends from the bank to the center of the river. According to South Dakota law, the bed of the river is owned by the state of South Dakota. "It's hard to saywhere the border is," states George Berndt, of the National Park Service in Yankton. "The bound- ary of the two states might go to the middle of the channel, but does it stay there, or does it shift with the river when the channel changes?The proper- ty of the landowner goes to the high water bank. There is a very strong pos- sibility that the ruins of the riverboat rest on the Nebraska side of the river." Goat Island, located north and eastof the tiny village of St. James, Nebraska, hasn't received this much attention in 200 years -not since Private George Shannon, youngest member of the Lewis & Clark Expedition, was sent there to find stray horses and he himself became lost for sixteen days. "No one has ever laid claim to Goat Island. The land was never ceded by the govern- ment, and that is now being researched," says Paul Hedren, Superintendent of the Missouri National Recreational River in O'Neill.

FALL 2004.9 "That matter has been sitting in the varied with the sizeof the boat. hands of the court for the past three "Many people Wood provided the power for steam- years, and we are waiting to hear the didn't believe me boats,and their appetitewas voracious: they burned a cord, a stack 4 x 4 x 4 court's decision. Several options are when I tried to tell them available. Goat Island could go to the feet, every hour. It wasn't possible to National Park Service, which would give what I found" carry enough wood for a full trip, so us a green light to clean it up and make -Clint Pinkelman gathering and maintaining an ample it better for everyone, or it could go to supply was an ongoing problem for the Interior Bureau of Land Mfairs. It men could have carried. For the next steamboatcaptains. In the early years could remain federal public land. forty years, until the railroads arrived, they would stop near a stand of trees Perhaps South Dakota or Nebraska will riverboats remained the fastest, easiest and the crew would go ashoreto cut be the owner, or it could possibly way into . They carried what they needed. As traffic became become a wildlife management area." freight, mail, homesteaders, military more regular, entrepreneurswould cut troops and miners to gold camps in the and stackwood in piles on shoreto sell FUR TRAPPERS and traders had plied Black Hills and Montana. to the riverboats.A cord varied in cost the Missouri for at least two decades The first boats on the Missouri were from $2.25 to as much as $16.00, before the Lewis & Clark expedition, sidewheelers, driven by paddlewheels on dependingon the locationand availabil- but their reports of abundant beaver each side, but these were not a practical ity. and other fur- bearing animals dramati- design becausethe river channel was too Far West,one of the best known boats cally increased the traffic. Although narrow in many places. A new style on the river, was built in Pittsburgh in boats were the safest, surest way to get a boat, using just one paddlewheel at the 1870 for $24,000. She lasted eighteen season's accumulation of pelts to mar- stern of the vessel,was adapted for trav- years, which was somewhat unusual: five ket, only so much cargo could be man- el on the Missouri. Most of these stern- years was the averagelife span of a river- handled downriver. That limitation was wheelers had t\\"o decks, but some of the boat on the upper Missouri. Usually a overcome in 1832 when the steamboat larger boats sported three. Regulations boat paid for itself by the end of the first 1-ec/lowstonetraveled to Fort Tecumseh, required every steamboat to carry one year. If no serious accidents occurred known today as Fort Pierre, and captain, two pilots, two engineers and a during the next few years, the owner brought out more than a hundred boat- mate; the number of crew and firemen could make a tidy profit.

With a digital hearing instrument, you can improve your hearing experience. A key advantage of digital technology is that it allows your hearing healthcare professional to fit your hearing instrument more precisely to your individual hearing loss and lifestyle. Call ProCenter Hearing today and fmd out if a digital hearing instrument is for you.

112 W. 3rd, Downtown Yankton Hours: Mon.-Fri. 10-5 p.m. or anytime by appt.

(605)665-1045 or 1-800-246-1045 Daniel Smith Weaccept Medicaid Assignments(SD and NE) BS, BC-HIS

0. IVING HERE Far Westwas a small boat, 189 feet Yankton, Westernand Fontenelle,were boats embeddedin the sand and silt of long and 33 feet wide, with one deck, completely destroyed. Peninah was the river bed. For now, Clint two engines, and three boilers. Among washed ashore, and the NelliePeck ended Pinkelman's discovery has rejoined other tasks, she carried military supplies up on railroad tracks some 3,700 feet them. It is once again hidden beneath to the Yellowstone country during the from the river. She didn't touch water the watersof the Missouri. In one sense, Indian wars of the 1870s, and played a again until late July. that's a good thing. part in the most famous battle of that The same flood carved a new river "Preservationof the remains is very era. Captain Grant Marsh picked up channel below Yankton, cutting important," says Jim Peterson. "The wounded soldiers after the Little Big through the big bend above Vermillion only thing that preservedthe timbers is Horn and ferried them to Ft. Abraham and shortening the river course by 17 the fact that they were submerged. If Lincoln, covering 700 miles in 54 hours miles. Alas, there were fewer and fewer thoseold timberswere pulled out of the -a record never broken or equaled. boats to take advantage of the change. water, they would dry out and deterio- Even at their fastest, riverboats could Josephine, under the command of rate in the open air." Solving the mys- never compete with railroads: trains Captain Leach, was the last working tery of the identity of that particular could move freight faster and cheaper, commercial steamboat on the Missouri boat will haveto wait. and were available year-round. When River. She continued delivering freight "I think that [the wreck] is going to the Missouri was frozen through the between Running Water and Sioux City be a wonderful curiosity that periodical- winter months, steamboats could do until 1907, when government inspec- ly surfacesas the movementof the sands nothing but sit on shore. There was still tors declared her unsafe. On her final coversand uncoversit, and as the chan- a niche for river boats through the trip to berth at Running Water she nel of the river changes," says Paul 1870s, but this grew smaller and small- stopped at Yankton, a melancholy visit Hedren. "It has been there years upon er as time passed. In an ironic twist, the that signaled the end of a rich and excit- years,decades on decades,encapsulated river its~lf dealt a devastating blow to ing era in which such mighty boats did by the sand,and once in a blue moon riverboats. theirpart in settling the West. the water drops and we get to seeit. I After a particularly harsh winter in think that is its legacyto us." 1881, the spring thaw sent water and ice HISTORIANS BELIEVE the stretch of rushing downriver in a torrent. Two of river from Yankton to below Vermillion Marita Placeklives on afarm near Lynch, the eleven steamboats wintering at contains the remains of several river- Nebraska.

.-rv1 t KostelFuneral Home, we understand ~Yt that life is differentfor everyone.People have

different faiths, customs, and occupations. But each

person'slife is special. For that reason,we always make a

point of concenttating on the quality of a life well-lived.

Not just through special memorials, but through helping

family and friends celebratespecial moments. Becauseto

us, that's what funeral service is all about. And that's why

we say "understanding is a way of life."

c:- - "FUNI:RAL HOME 601 W. 21st Street ~ & CREMATORYYankton. Tabor. Menno

(605) 665-9679 .1-800-495-9679 wwwokostelfuneraIhome.com

FALL 201