The golden era of steamboats in Urbanna began when two steam-powered side-wheel vessels from Norfolk, Petersburg and Albemarle, arrived in 1821 at the mouth of Urbanna Creek. In 1828, a Baltimore firm started the first commercial steamboat route on the Rappahannock River, and Urbanna was one of the main stops. Early side-wheel steamers could not turn around in the creek, so they anchored in the Rappahannock River while launches met the steamers and brought passengers, U.S. Mail, and other goods from the city. Steamboat traffic increased as propeller-drive steamers could maneuver inside the creek. In 1845, Alfred Palmer opened Palmer's Wharf at the foot of Watling Street. By the 1880's there were two other wharves in town, Gressitt's Wharf and Donaldson's. When Palmer sold his wharf to Columbus "Captain Lum" Burton in the 1880s, it became Burton's Wharf and later Urbanna Wharf-No. 12. Burton, a Civil War veteran, and his wife Lucy raised a large family and ran a boarding house, Burton House, in their home just up from the wharf. The last steamboat, Anne Arundel, entered Urbanna Creek in 1937, and as it stopped there on a final excursion trip from Baltimore, people closed their businesses and came out of their homes to watch the end of an era.