Dredge.
L/B:
125 × 62 (38.1m × 8.9m). Mach.:
steam engine, paddlewheels. Des.:
Henry M. Shreve. Built:
Dohrman & Humphries, New Albany, Ind.; 1831.
Archimedes was the second snag boat of the same design built for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The first, Heliopolis, was a catamaran design consisting of two 125-foot by 25-foot hulls separated by 12-foot beams. Powered by two paddlewheels (one on either hull), the vessel was fitted with a steam pulley, cables, chains, and other devices for snagging tree trunks and other obstacles. The procedure was simple, even primitive: the vessel was driven into a tree, which was then grappled, hauled aboard, and cut into smaller pieces that were then thrown overboard to float downriver. The importance of the snag boats was immense. Steaming times on the Mississippi were cut in half, from as much as fifteen days to only six or seven days between New Orleans and Louisville.
The work for which Archimedes is best remembered is clearing the "great raft," a 200-mile-long thicket of trees, mud, and other growth that made inaccessible the upper reaches of the Red River, which flowed from eastern Texas to the Mississippi. That part of Texas was then owned by Mexico but inhabited by a large population of displaced Cherokees and settlers from the United States. Shreve started work on the raft in 1833 and six years later the Red River was opened to navigation along its entire 1,200-mile length to Fort Towson. Along the way, Shreve also helped found Shreveport, Louisiana.
McCall, Conquering the Rivers.
