This picture is of the St. Louis Waterfront taken on June 16, 1858, during the flood period. In the left foreground is the ticket office of the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad, now the Cincinnati to St. Louis line of the Baltimore and Ohio. In 1858 the passengers detrained at East St. Louis, Illinois and came across the Mississippi to St. Louis on ferry boats. Two good sized side wheelers, destined to take active parts in the Civil War river navies are seen in the picture. These steamers are the Alonzo Child, located near the center of the group, and which can be identified by the flaring spark arresters on top of its chimneys, and the Platte Valley, second boat from the right, the pilot house of which can be seen projecting above the wheel housing of the side-wheeler at the extreme right. ALONZO CHILD: Built at Louisville, Kentucky in 1857. Dimensions:1 222 x 36 x 6.5 feet; 493 tons. She had six boilers and her engines were 24 inches in diameter and 7-foot stroke. Along with other Confederate-owned steamboats, she was up Yazoo River on November 16, 1862 and at Yazoo City in May, 1863. At that time it was described in a report by a Union officer as a \"large boat whose machinery has been taken out and sent to Mobile to be put on another boat\". That other boat was the Confederate ironclad Tennessee which was captured by Union forces in Mobile Bay on August 5, 1864. An officer of the capturing force said the Child's engines were \"placed fore and aft in the vessel, geared to an idler shaft to the propeller shaft by a bevel cast iron gear\". After the Child's machinery had been removed, she was captured up the Yazoo River on September 1, 1863. Admiral Porter stated that \"She was taken while in the service of the rebel government (used to obstruct the channel at Hayne's Bluff), and has a good hull\". It was recommended that the Child be used as a receiving ship or marine barracks for the Union forces and she was accordingly towed into Memphis by the National. The name Jeff Thompson has a peculiar significance in the history of the boat, for the official records tell us that the \"Platte Valley was brought to by Jeff Thompson and two passengers taken prisoner; her captain and clerks were arrested at Cape Girardeau and the boat tied up\". This Jeff Thompson was apparently a Confederate Army officer who had a boat named for him, and the peculiar part of it is that the Platte Valley sank and was destroyed on January 18, 1867, by striking the wreck of the Confederate gunboat Jeff Thompson at the head of President Island, Memphis. PLATTE VALLEY: The Platte Valley, which was in the service of the Anchor Line when this picture was taken, was built in Jeffersonville in the same year as the child, 1857. She was 220 x 33 x 5.4 feet. Her engines were 22 inches by seven feet. She had three boilers, 26 feet long and 44 inches in diameter, and her wheels were 32 feet in diameter with 8-1/2 foot buckets. The doctor worked two eight inch pumps. Original cost of the Platte Valley was $45,000, and the Anchor Line records list her value as on February 24, 1859, as $37,000; on January 23, 1860 as $30,000; and February 9, 1861, as $24,000. The Platte Valley saw much service in the Civil War as a transport in the Union Army's quartermaster corps, and on June 17, 1863, was fired upon with cannon and rifle about 15 miles above Memphis, with the result that three men were killed and several wounded. In April, 1864, she was at Fort Pillow, removing the Union wounded. But not all the Platte Valley's history is connected with war as she was in the Memphis and Vicksburg trade in peace time. Also she was one of the finest boats ever on the Missouri River. In the spring of 1859 she ran between St. Joseph and Kansas City as a passenger boat for the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad and Captain W. C. Postal was her master. Her bow timbers were 4-1/2 and 5 inches by 5-1/2 inches at the knuckle spaces, and the floor timbers were 5 by 5-1/2 inches. The side timbers were 4-1/2 by 5-1/2 inches at the knuckle, while the main kelson was 7 x 11 inches in four pieces. Knuckle kelsons were 5 inches by 9 inches, double, and the stanchion streaks had similar dimensions. The floor streaks wer 4 on each side, three of them 5 by 8 inches, and one being 5 by 9 inches, double. Deck beams were 3 by 6 oak and pine, well bolted. Officials of the Anchor Line wrote that the Platte Valley was \"a well built and well fastened boat\", and \"was built under the rule adopted, limiting size of Missouri boats, and is well adapted to the trade\".
