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Missouri Riverboat Wreckage Downstream from Yankton, South Dakota

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Missouri Riverboat Wreckage Downstream from Yankton, South Dakota Nebraska History posts materials online for your personal use. Please remember that the contents of Nebraska History are copyrighted by the Nebraska State Historical Society (except for materials credited to other institutions). The NSHS retains its copyrights even to materials it posts on the web. For permission to re-use materials or for photo ordering information, please see: http://www.nebraskahistory.org/magazine/permission.htm Nebraska State Historical Society members receive four issues of Nebraska History and four issues of Nebraska History News annually. For membership information, see: http://nebraskahistory.org/admin/members/index.htm Article Title: Missouri Riverboat Wreckage Downstream from Yankton, South Dakota Full Citation: Paul M Putz, “Missouri Riverboat Wreckage Downstream from Yankton, South Dakota,” Nebraska History 64 (1983): 521-541 URL of article: http://www.nebraskahistory.org/publish/publicat/history/full-text/NH1983Wreckage.pdf Date: 4/08/2014 Article Summary: The great Missouri River steamboats facilitated the settlement of the northern plains. Sinkings, fires, and groundings were common, however. A submerged wooden structure, an unidentified wreck from the nineteenth century, was discovered near Yankton in 1981. Cataloging Information: Names: Pierre Chouteau, Sanford Coulson, T C Power, E H Durfee, C K Peck, Hiram Chittenden Place Names: Yankton, South Dakota; Sioux City, Iowa; Bismarck, North Dakota Steamboats: Yellowstone, Chippewa, Far West, Bertrand, Senator, Fontenelle, Western, Yankton, Lizzie Warden, Belle of Lexington, Josie L K, Katie Transportation Companies: Northwest Transportation Company, Kountz Line, Missouri River Transportation Company, Fort Benton Transportation Company, Montana and Idaho Transportation Company Photographs / Images: the Western at the Yankton levee near where it sank in the 1870s (with the E H Durfee alongside); the Western submerged; the forward section of the Western’s hull, April 1881; salvage marks on hull planking; broken ribbing over what appears to be the vessel’s central keelson; wrought iron spikes used to secure the planks; section of the trapezoidal “cocked hat” from the chine or rib connection in the hull; wreckage visible above the sandbar Missouri Riverboat Wreckage Downstream from Yankton, South Dakota By Paul M. Putz In November of 1981 two fishermen, Robert Winter and Jerry Melick, discovered and reported to the US Army Corps of Engineers the presence of a submerged wooden structure in a sandback downstream from Yankton, South Dakota. The following report outlines the nature of that find to the extent possible at the time of preparation. Because research is acknowledged to be incomplete and given the difficulties in working with sites underwater, this must be recognized as an interim report on research progress. F Following is a summary of the history of riverboat use on the Missouri River, particularly in the Yankton area, a description and analysis of the site discovered, and a presentation of cer­ tain evidence which may lead to an identification of the wreckage. Conclusions regarding future work at the site are also provided. Riverboats on the Upper Missouri River-Travel on the Missouri River above Council Bluffs began with an experiment conducted by the American Fur Company in 1831. The steamer Yellowstone was dispatched from St. Louis in April of that year in an unsuccessful attempt to reach Fort Union at the mouth of, the Yellowstone River. Based on this experience the company tried again in 1832 and delivered its cargo to the fort that June. Pierre Chouteau, an active partner in the firm, con­ tinued the practice of an annual delivery to posts along the Missouri for many years.l These early trips instructed boat owners and operators on the river's nature and allowed them to plan schedules and boat designs accordingly. Such knowledge served to significantly expand steamboat opera­ tions on the river as the Missouri basin grew in population. It was known that the Missouri was a difficult river to 522 Nebraska History navigate. Separated into two regions, the sandy and rocky rivers (identified by the materials comprising their respective beds), the Missouri was shallow but fast. Its waters were replete with snags, sandbars, and, in the upriver portion, boulders. Spring floods created unpredictable channel altera­ tions, and each winter the surface froze solid, making the material for lethal ice flows and ice dams. Adding to the danger of the river itself was the remoteness of the land through which it flowed. For almost 3,000 miles the Missouri twisted through areas barely settled in the 1830s to the yet uncharted Rocky Mountains. There were vast stretches between outposts, themselves in peril of western dangers. Woodcutters, whose service was necessary in an industry in which one boat could burn a cord each hour of operation, were not conveniently positioned as in more developed regions. Thus the crews of early steamboats landed frequently to cut fuel on the hostile shore. 2 Inconvenience, however, gave way to profits. Lucrative government contracts to carry supplies to the military and the Indian tribes upriver in addition to trading furs made river­ boat trips into the wilderness profitable indeed. Pierre Chouteau pioneered the former with contracts to take goods north from St. Louis to Fort Pierre and beyond. In 1860 Chouteau reached Fort Benton, upstream from the mouth of the Missouri using two boats specially designed for the trip.3 By this time, however, his were not the only steamers on the upper river. The opening of Dakota Territory in 1859 brought European culture farther up the Missouri Valley. In anticipation of con­ trolling commerce within the developing area, a group of en­ trepreneurs founded Sioux City, Iowa, immediately across the border. By the time new lands to the west were ready, Sioux City was an incorporated town of several hundred people. It became the terminus of steamboat lines based in St. Louis. As Dakota' Territory developed, Sioux City was joined by the set­ tlements of Vermillion, Yankton, and Bon Homme upstream. All were steamboat stops. So were a profusion of military forts and Indian agencies created by the treaties establishing several new reservations. More reservations were established follow­ ing the 1862 Sioux Uprising in southwest Minnesota.4 A rapidly growing population in the territory and a tremen- Missouri Riverboat Wreckage 523 dous demand for goods suddenly created by gold discoveries in Montana attracted competition to the Missouri River steam­ boat trade. Between 1860 and 1867 the number of boats strug­ gling yearly upstream increased from 9 to 71. Annual tonnage swelled from a few thousand to over 15,000 tons of freight yearly on the upper river during that time. 5 These numbers seem small but virtually all such trips were made by boats once a year between May and mid-June when the river was highest. Further downstream more frequent steamboat landings were possible; but for the upper river, steamboating was a seasonal business. Until 1868 government contracts were issued for departure from St. Louis levies, but that year saw the beginnings of a pattern which focused steamboat operations further up the river, a pattern in which was woven the end of steam boating on the Missouri. Military and commercial interests depended on river transportation as an alternative to slow and expensive land freighting. The arrival of the Chicago and North Western Railroad at Sioux City in 1868 not only opened up a faster land route to the upper Missouri region but directly connected Chicago and Dakota Territory. Consequently, shipping practices were altered. Goods soon arrived in Sioux City by rail to be warehoused for subsequent river transport, as both the Army and civilian agents took ad­ vantage of accelerated deliveries offered by the railroad. St. Louis was replaced by Sioux City as the headquarters for steamboat interests. Later, Yankton and then Bismarck were favored steamboat centers, but they too lost out to the railroads. A year before the Chicago and North Western arrived there, the first Sioux City riverboat line was formed. Known as the Northwest Transportation Company, it owned five steamers hauling to points as far north as Fort Benton. Although freight to Benton fell off as overland routes from the south and west of Montana took over, steamboat men found new markets in the expanding territory. More boats plied the river, and com­ panies entered into intense competition for military and an­ nuity contracts. This was particularly true of the Northwest Transportation Company and the Kountz line, which located in Sioux City in 1871. In 1873 one of the partners in the Northwest line, Sanford The Western at the Yankton levee, 1870s, near where it sank, with the E. H. Durfee alongside. Coulson's warehouse (left) was later used as a barn and may still be standing on a farm outside Yank­ ton . ... (Below) the Western submerged. Missouri Riverboat Wreckage 525 Coulson, and several associates created the Missouri River Transportation Company. This new line was headquartered in Yankton, Dakota Territory, where the Dakota Southern Railroad had just arrived. Again rail transportation into the West squeezed steamboat traffic to a shorter stretch of the Missouri, and Coulson found his boats operating out of Yankton and Bismarck, the latter now being a terminus for the Northern Pacific. It was in Bismarck that Kountz established his base after aligning himself with the railroad. He would soon be in competition with the Fort Benton Transportation Company owned by T. C. Power. Coulson's old partners, E. H. Durfee and C. K. Peck, who ran the remaining fur and trading business in the upper Missouri Region, continued to operate from Sioux City. Thus, by 1874 steamboat companies were located in each major community along the river. A swiftly changing frontier dramatically affected the steamline industry, whose nature was volatile anyway, but few steamboat men probably knew in 1874 that in 10 years their business would be a thing of the past.
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