Museum

THE UPPER TENNESSEE RIVERBOAT MUSEUM

is a web-based museum researching and preserving the history of riverboating on the upper Tennessee River from the early keelboat days.

We would like to solicit your help in locating information or artifacts that would be useful to the Museum. Before the days of TVA and the Corps of Engineers the river was a VERY different place. We want to document and preserve Tennessee River operations from the days of the early rafts, flatboats and keel boats up to the present time. Your assistance in this effort will be greatly appreciated.

Today it is extremely difficult to comprehend what the early steamboats accomplished without electric lights, diesel engines, locks and dams and modern communications. Just imagine yourself in the drawing below, peering out between the stacks, constantly watching for snags and shallow water that could destroy your wooden boat in an instant and this is during daylight.

On a dark night with no moon it was even more difficult and most boats banked unril morning.

Many boats had to stop along the way to refual and in the south that meant wood.

Today sternwheel riverboats are diesel powered and this one is diesel / hydraulic.