Nashville History Corner

An Abbreviated History of the St. Louis and Tennessee River Packet Company

BY RIDLEY WILLS II

When I was born in 1934, there were still a few steamboats on the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers. Still, most of us don’t have a good idea of what the steamboat companies did and how they made their money.

The largest steamboat operator on either river was the St. Louis and Tennessee River Packet Company, which was founded in 1887 and which primarily operated on the Tennessee River between Paducah and Florence, Ala., until the company was dissolved on Dec. 8, 1942.

The founders of the company were a young man in Nashville named John E. Massengale and another Nashvillian, Isaac T. Rhea, and his father, Maj. B. S. Rhea, the corn king of Tennessee. They decided to focus on lower Tennessee, which had no direct competition from railroads since they only crossed the river in a few places and did not parallel it at all. The territory needed good markets for its huge supplies of farm and forest products. The lower Tennessee River Valley also had some of the finest hardwood timber in the country. Hauling lumber cut in sawmills along the river became one of the company’s big sources of revenue.

The company, whose headquarters were in St. Louis, initially had one 200 ton steamboat, the Henry A. Tyler which was 160 feet long, and 30 feet wide. Its initial route was from St. Louis 200 miles down the Mississippi to the mouth of the Ohio at Cairo, up the Ohio 50 miles to the mouth of the Tennessee at Paducah, then up the Tennessee 300 miles to Florence, Ala., a total of 550 miles one way from St. Louis to Florence, which, because of the Muscle Shoals, was at the head of navigation for all practical purposes. This meant that St. Louis would profit from extensive new business from Florence, Sheffield and Tuscumbia, Ala., and from Fayetteville, Pulaski and Savannah, Tennessee as well as from smaller towns along the river in both states; Massengale and the Rheas didn’t focus on the Cumerland because the railroads had already dealt a death blow to many of the Cumberland rIver boats. In June 1886, Massengale went to a steamboat auction sale in Nashville where he bought the Samuel J. Keith for $8,000. He took the boat to Paducah, where it was renamed the City of Florence. It made its first trip up the Tennessee on July 3, 1886 and had no trouble reaching Florence because the boat only drew 20 inches of water.

The yet-unincorporated company began advertising two boats a week on the Tennessee. One would leave St. Louis at 5 p.m. on Wednesday and the other at the same time on Saturday. Tennessee River shippers had the banks piled high at every stop with cotton, railroad ties, peanuts, livestock and other farm and forest products. In the winters, the company continued to accept freight, shipping it from Cairo to St. Louis by train because ice was usually bad on the Ohio, and had the City of Florence pick it up there and take it up the Tennessee which usually had little ice during the winters. In November 1886, Massengale sold the Henry A. Tyler because it was not a shallow water boat like the City of Florence. To replace the Henry A. Tyler, Massengale bought the William H. Cherry in February 1887. It was named for William H. Cherry of Savannah, Tenn, who had been steamboating on the Tennessee River since 1840. The Cherry Mansion in Savannah, where W. H. Cherry lived, had been Gen. U.S. Grant’s headquarters during the Battle of Shiloh.

The Tennessee River trade exceeded expectations which meant that Massengale and Rhea had competition from Evansville and Cincinnati boats. One Cincinnati boat, the John S. Gilbert, was hauling so many “Tennessee Red'' peanuts, many of which came from Hardin County, that it was called the “Peanut John.” A rate war ensued between the rival steamboat lines which resulted in Massengale getting a lion’s share of the business. He was one of the shrewdest men on the river.

In 1887, John Massengale and Isaac Rhea had had such success that they and others formed a corporation named the St. Louis and Tennessee River Packet Company with Isaac Rhea president; James Koger, of Paducah, vice-president, and John E. Massengale secretary-treasurer.

With the acquisition of the John Gilbert in 1887, the company now had three boats on the Tennessee. In the summer of 1888, Massengale ran an ad inviting the St.Louis people to see the beautiful, winding Tennessee. They not only responded but fell in love with Tennessee. In 1888, the round trip fare from St. Louis to Florence and back took eight days. A berth and meals cost $10.

Now that the company was prospering, its owners felt comfortable in no longer buying used boats. On June 16, 1888, the owners announced that the Howard Shipyard in Jefferson, Ind.,would build a boat for them designed for the Tennessee River Trade. The City of Savannah made its trial run on Oct. 22 and reached Savannah on Nov. 11. Four hundred citizens were on hand to greet the boat. Its owners were given a silver service, bouquets and other mementos.

In 1891, the City of Florence and the W. H. Cherry were replaced by the larger and better suited City of Savannah and the City of Sheffield, which was 185 feet long, 35 feet wide, and had three boilers and 22 lovely staterooms. The City of Paducah came on line in 1894.

In December 1894, the Shiloh battlefield was opened as Shiloh National Park. Beginning the next summer, Civil War veterans, almost entirely former Union soldiers from the midwest, began clamoring to visit the battlefield where they fought on April 6-7, 1862.

The St. Louis and Tennessee River Packet Company, aware that no railroad came close to Shiloh, loaded the City of Paducah at St.Louis and the City of Sheffield at Paducah with Union veterans and took them to Pittsburg Landing. With competing boats from Evansville, Cincinnati and other up-river points already there, the collection of steamboats at Pittsburg Landing was the largest ever seen.

Savannah citizens also wanted to see Shiloh National Park. They boarded the Shiloh at Savannah which took them there after picking up additional passengers at each stop between Savannah and Pittsburg Landing. Summer cruises from Paducah and St. Louis to Shiloh became a big money-maker for the St. Louis and Tennessee River Packet Company. The last run to the military park, may have been in 1928, when the Paducah picked up 50 aging Civil War veterans, including some ex-Confederates, and took them to the battlefield on the 66th anniversary of the battle.

Because of the dangers that steamboats faced on the western rivers, primarily snags that snag boats missed removing, and boiler explosions, steamboats were short lived.

Many of the St. Louis and Tennessee River Packet Company boats in the 1890s and the first three decades of the twentieth century were named for states and river towns. They included the Kentucky, the City of Saltillo, the City of Memphis, the Tennessee, the Paducah, the Memphis, the Saint Louis, and the Tennessee Belle.

From time to time, rate wars with the old Lee Line and others, floods, low water, ice and the sinking of boats drove down profits. But there were many good years. One of the last of the good years was 1926.

In addition to the farm and forest products, which included apples, cotton, peanuts, railroad ties, wheat and eggs, the St. Louis and Tennessee Packet Company also loaded mussel shells dug out of the Tennessee on their boats and took them to St.Louis. Their boats additionally delivered mail between the small towns on the river.

The Tennessee had large quantities of fresh-water bivalves, somewhat like oysters. They were used extensively in making pearl buttons. Masengale’s boats took them to St. Louis.

On the trips up the Tennessee, the boats brought both passengers and freight, including good, strong buggies made by the Banner Buggy Company in St. Louis. The villages and towns on the Tennessee had good horses and pretty girls, but needed a snappy buggy to complete the picture.

The coming of automobiles, buses and better roads, the diesel engine, towboats and barges in the 1920s and 1930s caused the death of the steamboat business. In 1930, traffic on the Tennessee had fallen off so much, particularly at night, that the federal government turned off all the 60 navigational lights along the river. By then, most of the Masengale officers and crews had found employment on towboats or had left the river for other jobs. In 1931, the Alabama was the last of the Massengale packets. On Dec. 9, 1934, the Paducah Sun-Democrat discontinued its “River Column,” which had been in existence almost since the beginning of Paducah.

On Nov. 6, 1942, the Tennessee Belle, once owned by Massengale, burned while tied up near Natchez. That was the last leaf on the tree. On Dec. 9, 1942, Captain James Rhea Massengale dissolved the charter that officially started the St. Louis and Tennessee River Packet Company April 13, 1887. Captain Rhea died of a heart attack at his home in Webster Groves, Missouri on Jan. 19, 1951, at age 76. A colorful era was gone.