New Orleans

Golden Eagle River Museum

1911

picture

New Orleans (Steamboat)
River steamers
Steamboats

1910-1919

Built Pittsburgh, 1811, Length, 138 ft. 371 tons. Robert Fulton's financial success on the Hudson gave him funds to fulfill a second ambition, which John Fitch had also held: introduction of steamboats on the Western Waters, to us the Mississippi River and its tributaries. Fulton sent Nicholas Roosevelt, another steamboat experimenter, to Pittsburgh to build the New Orleans, first steamer to operate west of the Allegheny Mountains. Little information on the New Orleans has survived. There is even some question whether she was a sidewheeler or a sternwheeler. Her first voyage took place in 1811, when she left Pittsburgh in October, doubled back from Louisville to Cincinnati to prove she could run against the current, and reached New Olreans in January, 1812. For the 1911 centennial celebration of this event, a sidewheel replica of the New Orleans was built. It is shown in this photograph. The original boat plied the Lower Mississippi until 1814, when she hit a snag and sank.

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Herman T. Pott National Inland Waterways Library