The Chalmette was built in 1881 at Jeffersonville, Indiana as the City of Vicksburg for the Anchor Line Packet Company of St. Louis, Missouri. She was wrecked by the cyclone in St. Louis on May 27, 1896 along with four other Anchor Line steamers. In the process of rebuilding by Captain W. H. Thorwegan as an excursion boat she was purchased by the Illinois Central Railroad interests and renamed
Light on the River - August 18, 1880. The Steamer Chas. P. Chouteau, lying at the foot of Market street, attracted considerable attention along the levee last evening by its two electric lights, which shone forth with intense brightness. The Chouteau is the first steamer at this point on the Mississippi River to substitute an electric llight for the old fashioned pine-torch illuminators, and the