''Sprague'', built at

Dubuque, Iowa Dubuque (, ) is a city in Dubuque County, Iowa, United States, and its county seat. The population was 59,667 at the 2020 United States census. The city lies along the Mississippi River at the junction of Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin, a region ...

's '' Iowa Iron Works'' in 1901 by Captain Peter Sprague for the Monongahela River Consolidated Coal and Coke Company, was the world's largest

steam powered A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be trans ...

sternwheeler A paddle steamer is a steamship or steamboat powered by a steam engine driving paddle wheels to propel the craft through the water. In antiquity, paddle wheelers followed the development of poles, oars and sails, whereby the first uses were wh ...

towboat A pusher, pusher craft, pusher boat, pusher tug, or towboat, is a boat designed for pushing barges or car floats. In the United States, the industries that use these vessels refer to them as towboats. These vessels are characterized by a squa ...

. She was nicknamed ''Big Mama'', and was capable of pushing 56 coal barges at once. In 1907, ''Sprague'' set a world's all-time record for towing: 60 barges of coal, weighing 67,307 tons, covering an area of acres, and measuring by . She was decommissioned as a towboat in 1948.

Legacy

After decommissioning, the ''Sprague'' became a museum on the Vicksburg, Mississippi, waterfront, and restoration was initiated in 1972 using funds appropriated by the

Mississippi Legislature The Mississippi Legislature is the State legislature (United States), state legislature of the U.S. state of Mississippi. The bicameral Legislature is composed of the Lower house, lower Mississippi House of Representatives, with 122 members, and ...

. For many years the long-running melodrama ''Gold in the Hills'' was performed on the towboat. Restoration had begun, but on April 15, 1974, the upper decks of the towboat burned while moored at Vicksburg. In 1975, the ''Sprague'' was moved to dry dock north of Vicksburg while negotiations for restoration funding proceeded. On April 15, 1977, the ''Sprague'' was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

(NRHP). With restoration funding approved, the ''Sprague'' was moved from dry dock in March 1979 to a mooring site on the

Yazoo River The Yazoo River is a river primarily in the U.S. state of Mississippi. It is considered by some to mark the southern boundary of what is called the Mississippi Delta, a broad floodplain that was cultivated for cotton plantations before the Ame ...

Diversion Canal north of Vicksburg. However, before restoration contracts were awarded, the ''Sprague'' sank at the mooring site, and restoration efforts were abandoned. The smokestacks and paddlewheel were removed, and in 1981, the Army Corps of Engineers demolished what was left of the ''Sprague'' using dynamite before clearing the metal debris from the canal. The Sprague was delisted from the NRHP on May 15, 1987. As of 2019, pieces of the ''Sprague'' were still evident in

Vicksburg, Mississippi Vicksburg is a historic city in Warren County, Mississippi, United States. It is the county seat. The population was 21,573 at the 2020 census. Located on a high bluff on the east bank of the Mississippi River across from Louisiana, Vicksburg ...

. A model of ''Sprague'' is in the

National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium The National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium is a museum located in Dubuque, Iowa, USA. The museum is a property of the Dubuque County Historical Society, which also operates the Mathias Ham Historic Site. The museum has two buildings on it ...

. The model was made in 1908 by ''Elizabeth Marine Ways,'' a steamboat yard in

Elizabeth, Pennsylvania Elizabeth is a borough in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, on the east bank of the Monongahela River, where Pennsylvania Route 51 crosses, upstream (south) of Pittsburgh and close to the county line. The population was 1,398 at th ...

, and was put on show at the Pittsburgh Exposition of 1908. Another model of ''Sprague'' can be found in the Portland Museum in the

Portland Portland most commonly refers to: *Portland, Oregon, the most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon *Portland, Maine, the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maine *Isle of Portland, a tied island in the English Channel Portland may also r ...

neighborhood of

Louisville, KY Louisville is the most populous city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, sixth-most populous city in the Southeast, and the 27th-most-populous city in the United States. By land area, it is the country's 24th-largest city; however, by populatio ...

. The Friends of the Sprague organization sponsored a mural entitled ''The Big Mama of the Mississippi'' as one of the Vicksburg Riverfront Murals. It was dedicated on March 23, 2007.

References

{{reflist Riverboats Towboats Steamboats of the United States 1904 ships Ships built by Dubuque Boat & Boiler Works Former National Register of Historic Places in Mississippi