The Steamer Sprague

The steamer Sprague, the largest and most powerful sternwheel towboat ever launched, was built in 1901 in Iowa by the Dubuque Boat and Boiler Works for the Monongehela River Consolidated Coal and Coke Company. In 1907 it set a towing record by pushing the largest tow of barges handled by a steam-powered vessel, 60 units measuring 1,125 feet long, 312 feet wide, and 67,307 tons, but it also lost a record tow of 53,200 tons of coal above Osceola, Arkansas. During the massive Mississippi River flood in April 1927, it rescued an estimated 20,000 people and brought them to Vicksburg. Decommissioned at Memphis in 1948 after traveling a distance equal to forty times around the equator, it was saved from scrapping by the citizens of Vicksburg, who bought it for use as a floating theater for Gold in the Hills and as the home of a river-related museum and the Vicksburg Yacht Club. Known affectionately as Big Mama, the Sprague burned in 1974 and eventually sank in 1979.

Vicksburg, Mississippi · United States