Four steamboats, two of them steel and two wood hull, also two steal hull Diesel boats, lines up on September 19, 1941, all awaiting new construction or repair work either in the water or out-on-the ways, at the Ayer and Lord Marine Ways at Paducah, Kentucky. The boats, left to right, are the Jerome D. Beeler and Walter F. Carey, of the Commercial Barge Lines; the Golden Eagle; the A. I. Baker which had just towed her in from near Chester, Illinois; the Polligwog, of the Lea River Lines; and popular Joe Chotin's first Diesel towboat, the Irene Chotin, which had caved in fuel tanks on her starboard side in the hull. Jerome D. Beeler: A steel hull, singer-propellor towboat built at St. Louis, Mo. by the St. Louis Shipbuilding and Steel Co. in 1941. Originally named the Delmar R. Traver but her name was changed in late 1943 to Jerome D. Beeler of Evansville, Ind. Owned by Commercial Barge Lines, Inc., Detroit, Michigan. In 1946 she was sold to the Arrow Transportation Co. and renamed Atco. Walter F. Carey: A steel hull, twin propellor towboat built at St. Louis Mo. by the St. Louis Shipbuilding and Steel Co. in 1943. The Carey was built from the sternwheel steam towboat Tallulah; built at Jeffersonville, Ind. in 1922. Owned by Commercial Barge Line, Inc., Detroit. Golden Eagle: Much has been written about this boat and her escapades. Originally built as the Wm. Garig in 1904 at Jeffersonville, Ind. - a small southern cotton carrier which operated up the Red River. The Eagle Packet Co., of St. Louis, Mo., bought her in 1918, brought her to St. Louis, renamed her the Golden Eagle and used her as a tourist boat. She sank below Grand Tower, Illinois, on May 19, 1947. A. I. Baker: Origin rather indefinite but she was an old time small towboat rebuilt and renamed the repeatedly until she became the A. I. Baker in 1923. She was long owned and operated by the Ayer and Lord Tie Co. of Paducah, Ky. She was dismantled in 1943 by her then owners, the Lea River Lines. Iren Chotin: A steel hull, twin-propellor towboat built at Nashville, Tenn., in 1941 by the Nashville Bridge Co. Owned by Chotin and Pharr, Inc., New Orleans, Louisiana. Polliwog: The Polliwog is a steel hull, twin-propellor towboat built in 1940 at Sturgeon Bay, Wis., but the Sturgeon Bay Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Co. She was built for the Lea River Lines of Wilmington, Del. In 1945 she was sold to hte Wheeling Steel Corporation who changed her name to Principio.
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