We drove the 90 miles and headed for the Howard Steamboat Museum across the street from the old Howard Shipyards (now Jeffboat) in Jeffersonville, Indiana. This company built thousands of paddlewheel and towboats from 1834 until 1941. The museum is housed in the Howard Mansion which is a four story massive brick 1894 home.
Once again, we got there shortly after the museum opened and had a tour all to ourselves. The crusty, 85 year old lady that gave the tour was a wealth of knowledge of everything in here. The mansion is located within the floodwalls of the city so is prone to flooding and has done so during each of the major floods in the area, 1913 and 1937, and during a tornado in the early 1900s and THEN a boiler in the basement blew up and part of the house caught fire. It is really amazing that the place still looks like a mansion!
There were many scale models of paddlewheel boats and authentic parts from steamboats of long ago. The home was built with wood that floated down the river. Many different kinds were used – some huge pocket doors that separated rooms had oak on one side and walnut on the other.
The carvings on the woodwork were made by true craftsmen. Words can’t describe so here are a few pictures.
I have mentioned before that the Delta Queen and Delta King are sister boats. When the DQ broke the shaft that runs through her paddlewheel the shaft from the DK was removed from the DK and used as a replacement. That very broken shaft sits out in front of the mansion!
Lunch was down the street at Schimff’s Confectionery. This is a famous candy store here so we bought some candy on our way out the door after BBQ pork and chicken salad sandwiches that were very reasonable priced at $3.50 each.
When the Ohio River was untamed, before the dams created lakes behind each, their was an area of rapids called the Falls of the Ohio. Clarksville, IN is next to Jeffersonville and is home to the state park that now tells the story of the Falls. A beautiful museum (I know, all the museums we visit are beautiful!) sits above the site and has exhibits on steamboats AND Lewis and Clark that interested us.
They created an “L” shaped dam here that lets you still see how the floor of the river was 100 years ago. We were able to walk down to the river’s edge on the limestone and play in the cool waters of the river here. The temperature here was about 10-15 hotter than up near the museum because of the warming effect of the limestone. (The things you learn in a museum!)
Across the river is Louisville. We visited the Visitor’s Center in downtown to read the story of an old friend of nearly everyone’s.
We toured the “old part of town” with all of the beautiful homes on tree-line streets.
We then embarked on a wonderful adventure with the GPS. The GPS knows where you are. It has a feature where you can ask it to show you the nearest gas station. It found a close one and we went there but Karen said let’s see if we can find some cheaper gas. So we followed the directions to the next place and it was a station that no longer served gas. The next choice did not exist. We were on our way to our 4th choice when we spotted one on our own at the same price as the first one.
All the while we were searching for gas we were also looking for a place to eat dinner. Someone stepped out of the van at the gas station and noticed a Pizza Hut/Taco Bell a ½ block away! We ate and then punched in the coordinates to our hotel (Best Western Envoy Suites) but took a different route because we had seen that the freeway was clogged on our earlier gas sojourn. Karen did a great job and we’ll be using her instead of the GPS for now on.
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