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The Sultana at Marion Museum
The last known shot of the Sultana, taken April 26, 1865, in Helena. People crowded to the side to be in the photo, showing the overcrowding on the boat and possibly causing the boat to list and having the water levels of the boilers shift that may have lead to the explosion. (Photo courtesy of Gene Salecker and the Sultana Historical Preservation Society.)
The Story of the SULTANA:
A museum in Marion tells the story of the deadliest maritime disaster in U.S. history
By KENNETH HEARD
he Sultana, a side-wheel steamboat, traversed upstream on the Mississippi River in the early morning hours of April 27, 1865, bound for what was later considered the worst maritime disaster in U.S. history. The 260-foot long, four-decked boat was loaded with Union soldiers recently paroled from two Confederate prisons. They were headed to their home ports in St. Louis, Cincin-Tnati, Louisville and other stops along the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. More than 2,000 packed the steamboat for the voyage. The Sultana was designed with a capacity of only 376 passengers, but Captain James Mason was paid passage for each soldier he carried, so he overloaded the vessel for a large profit. The boat departed Vicksburg, Mississippi, and stopped in Helena, Arkansas, on April 26, where photographer Thomas Bankes took its last picture. The photograph showed the passengers lining the decks, evidence of the vastly overloaded boat. Many stood on the
boat’s side closest to the photographer causing the boat to list and foreshadowing a point that played into what happened soon after.
At 7 p.m. on April 26, the Sultana steamed into Memphis where crew members unloaded more than 100 tons of sugar stored in its lower deck. Around midnight, the ship left Memphis, stopped upriver to pick up a load of coal on the Arkansas side of the Mississippi River, then headed north again.
The river’s current was strong, bolstered by the melting winter snows further north that caused runoff to pour into the waterway. At some points, the river was nearly three miles wide due to the spring flooding.
The Sultana made it about 7 miles north of Memphis, near the Chicken and Hen Islands near Marion, when one of the overworked boilers that produced the steam suddenly exploded. Two of the other three boilers exploded after, sending hundreds of passengers into the rapid, frigid waters.
Those who remained on board thought they were safe. The ensuing fire first burned toward the rear of the boat, and those remaining crowded toward the front of the decks. But the sidewheel paddle was destroyed, and the boat turned in the current. The northern winds fanned the fire from the boiler area, which now was facing the wind, into the remainder of the steamship.
Many people drowned. Others were burned or scalded by the steam.
In all, 1,220 died, says Gene Salecker, of River Grove, Illinois, a former Illinois history teacher and a member of the Sultana Historical Preservation Society in Marion.
But despite the mass casualties, the event did not receive much coverage and remains more of a footnote in history rather than the remembrance, for example, given to the sinking of the liner Titanic in 1912.
Part of that is due to the timing of the explosion, Salecker says. The Civil War had recently ended and President Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated less than two weeks earlier. The area newspapers were full of accounts of those stories. Lincoln’s body was traveling by train across the country as the Sultana steamed north and crowds gathered at stopping points to pay their respects. The day the Sultana exploded and sank, police captured Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Boothe, and subsequently killed him.
“People didn’t know anything about it,” Salecker says of the blast and the numerous
casualties.
But The Sultana Association is trying to remedy that. Plans call for building a 22,000-square foot museum in a former Marion School District gymnasium on Old Military Road, which leads off of Interstate 55 and heads through town to the Crittenden County Courthouse.
The school gave the gymnasium to the city of Marion after the state highway department indicated it would widen Old Military Road. School officials feared increased traffic on the road could put school children in harm’s way, and they built a new gymnasium.
The museum will cost about $10 million, according to historical society president John Fogleman. The group has already raised $5.3 million through pledges and grants, including a $1 million grant from the American Rescue Plan, which is geared to create and promote
Artist’s rendition of the April 27, 1865, explosion of the Sultana. (Courtesy Sultana Historical Preservation Society.)
The famed Sultana Burger at the Tacker’s Shake Shack in Marion. Portions of the burgers’ sales go to the museum fund. (Photo courtesy of Jeff Tacker.) new tourism destinations in the country.
When opened, Fogleman says, the museum is projected to see 50,000 visitors a year. Construction could begin late this fall, he adds.
“I was skeptical about that number at first. But I saw the visitorship last year at Pea Ridge, Arkansas, showed 80,000 visitors. Vicksburg had 300,000 a year and Shiloh had 350,000,” he says, referring to Civil War battle sites.
“Considering our proximity to Memphis and the interest in the Civil War, I can see us doing 50,000,” he adds.
The town of Marion is already supporting the Sultana. The preservation society opened a museum near the Crittenden County Courthouse square in April 2015. Salecker built a large replica model of the ship in his Chicago suburb home and then drove it to Marion for the museum’s opening.
Down the road near Interstate 55, Tacker’s Shake Shack offers the Sultana Burger, a giant creation that stacks four beef patties – one for each deck of the steamship – and slathers chili, hash browns, eggs and bacon and cheese on each deck.
“It’s overloaded like the steamship,” owner Jeff Tacker says. The meal weighs about four pounds and costs $30. A portion of the sale of each Sultana Burger goes to the museum fund. Those who can eat the monster meal receive a T-shirt and get their photographs taken and displayed on the restaurant’s wall. Tacker also shares the Sultana’s story with the diners. “Every time someone finishes it, we tell the story,” he says. “We had two the other day. One was a professional eater and finished it in eight minutes. “When someone gets close to finishing, everyone stops and watches,” he explains. His wall contains more than 100 before and after pictures of those who finished the burger.
Fortunately, Tacker jokes, there’s a paramedic and ambulance service located adjacent to his restaurant, just in case a diner has a boiler explosion of his or her own.
The museum will feature Salecker’s replica Sultana along with several interactive displays aimed at educating visitors about what actually happened on April 27, 1865. It will also have the names of those killed listed in a memorial.
There has been some misinformation about the Sultana over the years, Salecker says, including the number killed. A first count indicated 1,500 were killed. That number then went up to 1,800.
But Salecker, who became interested in the Sultana when he read the 1962 book “Transport to Disaster” as a child at the Mendota, Illinois, library, painstakingly pored through old records to verify the fatalities. He looked at the Sultana’s passenger manifest and compared it to military pension records.
“If people on the Sultana were receiving pensions after 1865, we knew they weren’t killed on the Sultana,” he explains.
It took him nearly two years to confirm the number dead, along with the probable cause of the blast.
There were rumors that saboteurs hid a bomb on the boat to kill the soldiers, but Salecker refutes that, saying had there been an explosive device, the blast would have ripped through the ship in an upward direction. Instead, the explosion occurred near the back of the boilers and caused the pilot house where the boat was steered to collapse into the ship.
More than likely, he says the boilers were struggling to haul the overloaded boat. The Sultana was powered by four 18-foot long tubular boilers that could generate twice as much steam as conventional flue boilers.
Water levels in the boilers had to be monitored closely to ensure no hot spots would occur and create metal fatigue. The boilers passed an April 12, 1865, inspection in St. Louis.
Perhaps, Salecker says, when people crowded on one side of the Sultana for the picture in Helena, it tipped the boat and the water levels in the boiler. The boiler, already fatigued and stressed, finally cracked and exploded near Marion.
Salecker has outlined his new findings in his book, “Destruction of the Steamboat Sultana,” which was published in March.
“At the time the boilers exploded, I was lying asleep on the lower deck,” wrote Pvt. Commodore Smith of Company F of the 18th Michigan Infantry in an account of the disaster. “I was not long in waking up for I was nearly buried with dead and wounded com-
rades, legs, arms, heads and all parts of human bodies…
“The boat was on fire and the wounded begged us to throw them overboard, choosing to drown instead of being roasted to death,” he wrote. “While our hearts went out in sympathy for our suffering and dying comrades, we performed our sad but solemn duty.”
Smith wrote that he soon jumped into the river and, admitting he was a strong swimmer, made his way downstream toward Memphis before finally clinging to a tree where he was later rescued.
Fogleman’s ancestors, including his great grandfather, played a role in saving some of the survivors.
In a 1929 letter written to the Memphis Commercial Appeal, L.P. Berry recalled seeing rescues. Berry, who was eight years old in 1865, said the burning wreckage of the Sultana drifted toward the Arkansas shore.
It eventually sank, and in 1982, a team found its remains in a soybean field about four miles west of the river near Marion.
“[It] came close enough to be reached by improvised boats handled by John Fogleman and his sons, Dallas and Leroy,” Berry wrote to the newspaper. “A small rope was trown [sic] on deck, which the men fastened to the cable. Mr. Fogleman, with a great deal of difficulty, made fast to the willows, thus stopping the further drifting of the boat. Many crawled out on the cable. A great number were rescued by Mr. Fogleman and his boys.”
Frank Barton donned his Confederate uniform and paddled into the river in a canoe, rescuing several others, Berry noted.
“This thing is like a nightmare to me,” he wrote. “I can close my eyes and see the long tongues of flames reaching for victims and I can hear the poor drowning wretches shrieking and pushing away from the flames.”
The Marion museum will include accounts like Berry’s and from other passengers in its attempt to tell the Sultana’s story fully. Gene Salecker
“We have a nice museum now,” Salecker says. “But the new one will be so much better. Educating people about what happened, that’s the mission.”
Fogleman says donations for the museum fund can be sent to the Sultana Historic Preservation Association, P.O. Box 211, Marion, Arkansas 72364.
DRAFT
SULTANA DISASTER MUSEUM
Photo courtesy of John Fogleman, president of the Sultana Historical Preservation Society.
By Day and Night, The City’s Set Aglow During Harvest Festival
What better way to spend your hard-earned vacation than at the No. 1 amusement park in America, and what 15,000 REAL PUMPKINS larger-than-life sculptures, and the new Foggy Hollow lighted pathway. From September 21 through October 29, you can better time to visit than during Silver Dollar City’s acclaimed Harvest Festival featuring Crafts & Pumpkins In The City? The experts over at Silver Dollar City have been hard at work turning 2022 into the park’s biggest entertainment year ever, and this fall will be no different, featuring more than 15,000 pumpkins, NEW PUMPKIN PATHS, MORE ILLUMINATION AND OVER please the thrill-seekers and the family friendly chill-seekers in your life. For those with a sense of adventure, the park has no shortage of internationally renowned roller coasters and rides like the spinning Time Traveler. Those looking to avoid the heights and enjoy something cozier will find no shortage of autumnal attractions, starting with an array of massive pumpkin sculptures. Displays of the gorgeous gourds include the 14-foot tall “Lucky” dog (the Dalmatian mascot of Fireman’s Landing); colorful bats with 5-foot wingspans perched atop lighted areas; craftspeople patterned after the park’s own master crafters; and an icon scarecrow more than two stories tall. Continuing through pumpkin paradise, The Garden of Giants also returns this year with real, half-ton pumpkins set along new expanded paths at Wilson’s Farm. That’s on top of the thousands of hand-carved pumpkins glowing throughout the park. For the little ones, the night comes alive with a blacklight glow-in-the-dark dance party where kids can dance alongside life-size pumpkin pals. Foodies can also rejoice with Silver Dollar City’s
Harvest Tasting Passport and a mouthwatering array of specialty foods from more than 20 eateries across the park. Delicacies range from fan favorites like the pork belly skillet and smoked sausage mac and cheese cones to the fantastically fall-flavored salted caramel apple funnel cake. If you’re craving pumpkin-forward offerings, there is no shortage of dishes to delight your autumn appetite. Here are just a few: Pumpkin and marshmallow sandwiches, pumpkin cheesecake cones, pumpkin chili, pork sandwiches with pumpkin barbecue sauce, pumpkin spiced ribs and pumpkin bread pudding. Also on the tasting menu is the Chuckwagon Cook-Off over in Cowboy Camp. Westernthemed chefs will battle it out by preparing a traditional cowboy dish that will be tested by the audience. The Chuckwagon King will be crowned by a show of whoops and hollers. Not to be forgotten is what makes Silver Dollar City “The Home of American Craftsmanship” as designated by the U.S. Congress. While live music plays from the outdoor stages and cowboy lore is brought to life by legendary chuckwagon chefs and storytellers, dozens of demonstrating crafters will share their talents from the streets and courtyards. World-renowned pumpkin carvers will be on display, while intricate creations such as jewelry, quilts, appliqué and woven rugs can be found at the Maker’s Market. Returning this season is famed watercolor artist Buck Taylor, known from his youth on the TV series Gunsmoke and now seen in the series Yellowstone. No matter what the season looks like for you, the Harvest Festival featuring Crafts & Pumpkins In The City is a must-experience for the whole family.
The Harvest Festival featuring Crafts & Pumpkins In The City runs from September 21-October 29, 2022. For more information: www.silverdollarcity.com
