This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.
Photographs of old 19th century steamboats generally show them hard at work, a machine trapped in the Protestant work ethic. Gotta' hustle. Gotta' get those immigrants up to Minnesota. Gotta' get those military supplies to Fort Snelling.
It's not the whole truth. Even the hardest working steamboats, once or twice a season, whenever immigrants and cargo hit a low point, made a handsome profit by going no place in particular.
Even the trial run of the first steamboat, “Fulton's Claremont,” out in New York, was turned into an excursion to make money from passengers. So, too, with the “New Orleans,” the first steamboat on the Mississippi. On her maiden voyage down the Ohio to Louisiana, the “New Orleans” stopped in Louisville and Cincinnati to give short rides at a dollar a head.
Mississippi River steamboat men quickly learned that not everyone wanted to immigrate to Minnesota. Most people who crowded the levee whenever steamboats landed just wanted a ride, and the captains accommodated them.
A new wrinkle in steamboat excursions began in 1828, when several Galena, Illinois, citizens arranged a 4th of July excursion aboard the “Indiana.” The party crossed the river to raise the American flag above the grave of Julien Dubuque—the first time the Stars and Stripes had flown in what would become Iowa.
Soon, there were steamboat excursions to everything imaginable: Sunday School picnics, fraternal gatherings, political parties, and even hangings carried out on islands (for which steamboats provided an excellent view.)
By 1910, when passenger and cargo traffic had all but ended, excursion boats going nowhere were still popular. But it took another seventy years to perfect the art when the riverboat gambling boats arrived at Rock Island. Today, in Rock Island, you can take a steamboat down to a bridge and back every two hours.
It's as close to nowhere as you can get, except across the river in Iowa. Those Iowans always seem to do us one better. Their casino boats don't ever have to leave dock. Which means that in Iowa, today, you can go nowhere for as long as your heart desires (and your credit card doesn’t max out).
Rock Island Lines with Roald Tweet is underwritten by the Scott County Regional Authority, with additional funding from the Illinois Arts Council and Augustana College, Rock Island.
