Steamboat's a comin'

No words could wake up a sleepy river town faster than "Steamboat's a comin'!"

Arrival of a river vessel meant more than fresh supplies. It meant news from the outside world.

Between 1800 and into the next century, until the arrival of the Frisco Railroad, nearly everyone from the north or south came to Cape Girardeau by the river. No wonder, the then little roadways were not much more than "mudways."

The Eagle Packet Co. of St. Louis, owned by the Capt. William Leyhe family, was a monumental boost to Cape Girardeau. Known for their steamboats named for our city, the packets brought products to the merchants' shelves from St. Louis or New Orleans, as well as larger items such as buggies and wagons.

The last "Cape Girardeau" gleaming white steamboat (the first two sank) was christened on April 23, 1924, before a crowd of 5,000 on Water Street. Townspeople came to hear Capt. "Buck" Leyhe on the upper deck and Mayor James Barks on the levy below.

Capt. William "Buck" Leyhe stands on the deck of an Eagle Packet Co. boat.G.D. Fronabarger ~ Southeast Missourian archive

The boats were very popular in the summertime to transport desirous travelers on a pleasurable jaunt on the Father of Waters. These excursions were oftentimes used as fund raisers. A Southeast Missourian newspaper clipping dated June 18, 1924, mentions the women's organization, P.E.O. Chapter BI, founded in 1911, was sponsoring a public excursion on the steamboat "Cape Girardeau" bound for Commerce, Missouri, 20 miles south, for the fare of 75 cents. Sailing south the passengers passed the pretentious Klosterman home, the tall Osterloh mansion and St. Vincent's Young Ladies Academy on the western shoreline. When arriving at Commerce, patrons could buy an ice cream cone by the music of the calliope.

Boarding the boat, passengers took their seats in the bow of the steamer on big rockers with cotton seat cushions. Many brought their lunches and sat at little tables arranged on the upper deck, where one could see the beautiful scenery and where often a sprinkling of fishermen sat among the willows at the water's edge.

From the pages of Anna Dierssen's little book, "Steamboat Delight," she tells of traveling on a local excursion in 1928 with a group of young coeds from Albert Hall at the State Teachers College, chaperoned by the dean of women. "After crossing under the building of the 'new' bridge from Cape Girardeau to Illinois, the first stop was Thebes, Illinois, where hogs and three racing horses were loaded below. At Commerce the livestock and travelers departed down the gangplank settled in the mud. 'Twenty minutes,' sang our the purser. The big whistle alerted everyone for the return to Cape Girardeau, the end to another memorable adventurous trip on the ancient waters."

Living in a river town, one can relate to what Mark Twain said in his writing, "Life On the Mississippi": The water of the Mississippi is full of mysteries. "Like a good book it can not merely be just read once and tossed aside, but has a new story to be told every day."