Steamboat Montana and the Opening of the West: History, Excavation, and Architecture

1. Introduction: Rediscovering a Local Legend

1. Introduction Rediscovering a Local Legend •• The identification of the steamboat Montana in September 2002 in the Missouri River near St. Charles, Missouri, by an East Carolina University (ECU) research team unlocked a tantalizing opportunity: a chance for researchers to combine history and archaeology on a known shipwreck. Although the identity of the wreck as the Montana was suspected because of its immense size, this inkling wasn’t confirmed scientifically until all of the data was carefully analyzed and corroborated by historical sources. As fate would have it, this particular wreck site was scheduled to be documented as part of a routine ECU Maritime Program fall field semester. Initially the shipwreck carried no special attraction other than that it was an interesting piece of intact steamboat wreckage, worthy of study simply because little is actually known about the construction and technology of western river steamboats. For the archaeological crew—graduate students—the wreckage was their first opportunity to study the interior of a western river steamer. The vessel’s true significance and identity was obscured by time, brown water, and clay. As it turned out,the archaeological team could not have been luckier.The Montana (figure 1) was one of the last and greatest of her architectural genre, the epitome of wooden steamer construction—an ideal artifact from which to learn and study steamboat history, construction, and engineering. Once on site, this particular steamer, unlike most wrecks, was easily identified by its enormous size.In addition,the wreckage rests in proximity to the Montana’s historically recorded wrecking location: across from the town of St. Charles,   · chapter 1 Missouri. Montana wrecked on June 22, 1884, in a collision with a railroad bridge caisson. The Montana archaeological site provided researchers the perfect opportunity to amass a body of evidence about the construction details of western river steamers. Archaeology and history had the perfect opportunity to generate comprehensive insight into this understudied genre of historic ship architecture. Archaeologists brought to the excavation their arsenal of documenting tools and analysis while historians sought out archival information concerning the life of Montana. Together they explored steam vessels of the nineteenth century that represented valuable capital and most often, regardless of the extent of damage, were floated and repaired in a short time. In a general sense, the history of the Montana gives researchers an opportunity to relate economic and social connections,trends and institutions that, when viewed from a holistic perspective, demonstrate how the United States was positioned to expand its manifest destiny from coast to coast.In contrast to what most modern histories suggest,it was marine transportation technology (steamboats) that made early systematic westward movement possible in nineteenth-century America. Beyond the modern and purely historical eulogies that often are solely concerned with vessel owners and the wealthy entrepreneurs that gained from westward expansion is Montana’s archaeology . It stretches the information envelope beyond the historic sources and sheds light on the life and times of the average western immigrant. The ship and the artifacts it contained show us how settlers migrated and were supplied , what their technologies were, what they carried with them, what they used to survive, and what they considered important enough to “ship” to an inhospitable frontier. In some ways the Montana was never lost.At low water the wreck lies half submerged on the riverbank, and curiosity seekers throughout the past century have often gazed in wonder at the large, periodically exposed timbers. Locals assigned to the sporadically revealed wreckage the name Montana, but knowledge of the vessel—the circumstances of its loss and whether the exposed timbers actually did belong to the ill-fated vessel—was consigned to the category of fading rumor. For this reason the state of Missouri concluded that the wreck site was worthy of investigation. Prior to the project, archaeologist Steven Dasovich of SCI Engineering, Inc., began monitoring three wrecks in the Missouri River that appeared in Introduction: Rediscovering a Local Legend ·  2001 due to extreme low water levels. Part of his contract included the cursory documentation of a large wreck at St. Charles. Dasovich initially photodocumented the wreck in January 2002 (figures 2 and 3).By the time the field school arrived, it was evident that a significant portion of the immense hull was intact, which made it abundantly clear that the wreck in question was most likely the Montana. Investigations conducted over the duration of the field school...