Robert Steen (C)
(6:20) Mr. Steen describes the different barges owned by the Arrow Transportation company, as well as the process for bringing a barge through the locks at the dams along the different rivers they navigated.Florence- Lauderdale Public Library Digital Archive Interview with Robert Steen April 14, 200...
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Florence-Lauderdale County Public Library
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| Online Access: | https://cdm15947.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/oral_hist/id/239 |
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Electronic |
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Oral Histories Collection |
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Florence-Lauderdale County Public Library |
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Florence-Lauderdale County Public Library |
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Oral histories -- audios and transcripts |
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Oral histories -- audios and transcripts Robert Steen (C) Florence-Lauderdale Public Library |
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Oral histories -- audios and transcripts Barges; Occupations; Dams |
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(6:20) Mr. Steen describes the different barges owned by the Arrow Transportation company, as well as the process for bringing a barge through the locks at the dams along the different rivers they navigated.Florence- Lauderdale Public Library Digital Archive
Interview with Robert Steen
April 14, 2008
Florence, Alabama
Conducted by Ken Johnson
Clip 3
Robert Steen: When we were out on the barges, we were out connecting the barges together, to make up a tow and we also took turns going through the locks, taking a barge through the lock. Now, the locks, at that time, all were of the smaller type locks. They were three hundred feet long and they were sixty feet wide. Now, if a person wants to see that, they can see the old lock, it’s still in existence at the Wilson Dam and that was the first lock that was built. Coming through that lock you would have to take one boat through at a time or one barge through at a time. It’s a double- lift type situation or a stair step effect; you pull the first barge in and then only one barge fits in, you have to disconnect it from the other barges and they back off, they close the gate, the water fills it up, the water comes out of the upper de— upper level and then you move it into the second level and go up and it would take about an hour to lift it from one level to the other and mindful of the fact that you were only taking one barge through at a time and taking an hour. You could spend eight, ten hours just going through the Wilson lock. And, furthermore, there was a lock down below Wilson, the main Wilson lock. It was called Lock Number 1 and it was down about where the Port Authority is located, or the Indian Mound is now and it would, it was only about a ten to twelve foot lift. But, the point is, that we were working on putting those barges through the locks. So, the majors areas of work really for a deckhand was the maintenance of boat equipment, assembling the tows, we had to put all this together. One, we had to break it apart when we was going through a lock; we had to put it back together when we got up above the locks and also we’d have to drop, ah, drop these barges off along the way as to who had ever ordered what was is in that barge for the companies transported and just about anything else that we were required to do. Now, the barges, I told you that Arrow Transportation Company owned about a hundred of these barges and those are all, I mean, heavy duty steel. And they let two sets or two types and we called them the standard and the jumbo or small and large. The small barge or the standard was 175 feet long and it was 26 [ unintelligible] feet wide and it would hold 700 to 800 tons. Now, I’ve heard it translated in as to how many boxcar loads of that, but when you’re taking 800 tons and if you could even consider that as to what a load of a ten ton truck, you’ve got a lot of truck loads in one of [ unintelligible]. Now, that was just a standard barge and we had the jumbo barge. It, it was the big one and the length of that was 195 feet and it’s 35 feet wide and it would hold 1500 tons of whatever you were hauling. Some of the major things we were hauling was grain, we’d haul pulpwood, we’d haul coal, scrap metal, scrap iron, and you name it. If there was a need for it somewhere along the river, as these various ports that you see, we, we would haul. A lot of, lot of tonnage there; they tell me that primarily there’s no, not a standard barge any longer, it’s primarily the jumbo barges, because, they had the smaller ones because there was a demand for smaller, smaller loads.
Ken Johnson: Well, now, you took a load somewhere; did you return empty or was it a matter of going, we’ll say up the river and carrying maybe grain up to Chattanooga or something of that nature and then picking up something else and bringing it back down the river?
RS: We traveled the full length of the Tennessee River, and we also, the boat that I was on, the company, they [ unintelligible] on all those rivers that I’d mentioned, but ours, being one of the smaller boats, we, we traveled primarily the Tennessee River. Now, the Tennessee River is navigable from Paducah, Kentucky to Knoxville, Tennessee, which is 650 miles to Knoxville and the river is navigable only three miles above Knoxville. Now, the scenario that you were setting forth, yes, that’s the way we would do it. We may go down to Cairo, Illinois. Now, Kenneth, Cairo, Illinois is at the point that the Ohio River runs into the Mississippi River. Coming back up the Ohio River for about fifty miles you come to Paducah, Kentucky and then you come up the mouth of, of the Tennessee River. So that’s 650 miles and we may pick up a bunch of grain barges at Cairo, Illinois and then come up, come through all of those locks, and course you’ve got locks starting down at Paducah, Kentucky, you come first to Kentucky lock, then the Pickwick lock, then the Wilson lock, the Wheeler lock, you know on the way— all the way up until you’ve gone through nine of these, these big locks. But, we might pick up something at Cairo, Illinois and take it all the way to Knoxville or, we may pick up a barge in Cairo, some in Paducah, Kentucky and then drop some of them in Decatur. Decatur, there’s a lot of granaries in Decatur, so they would have a lot of use for it. So, we were constantly picking up and dropping off. Now, there may be a reason to pick up a empty barge somewhere down the way. We did haul a lot of chemical from the local area here; we might pick up a chemical barge and bring it into the chemical plants here and that would be empty. We may pick it up as we came back down the river were full, but generally we were picking stuff up and bringing it up the river full and coming back down with an empty barge.
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| title |
Robert Steen (C) |
| titleStr |
Robert Steen (C) |
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Florence-Lauderdale Public Library |
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Florence-Lauderdale Public Library |
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FLCPLoral_hist239 |
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http://cdm15947.contentdm.oclc.org/utils/getthumbnail/collection/oral_hist/id/239 |
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1782468788711587840 |
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Robert Steen (C)Barges; Occupations; Dams(6:20) Mr. Steen describes the different barges owned by the Arrow Transportation company, as well as the process for bringing a barge through the locks at the dams along the different rivers they navigated.Florence-Lauderdale Public LibraryFlorence-Lauderdale Public LibraryRobert Steen2008-04-14sound; textaudio/mp3; text/pdfEnglishPart of the Florence-Lauderdale Public Library collectionContact the Florence-Lauderdale Public Library for permission to use.Florence- Lauderdale Public Library Digital Archive
Interview with Robert Steen
April 14, 2008
Florence, Alabama
Conducted by Ken Johnson
Clip 3
Robert Steen: When we were out on the barges, we were out connecting the barges together, to make up a tow and we also took turns going through the locks, taking a barge through the lock. Now, the locks, at that time, all were of the smaller type locks. They were three hundred feet long and they were sixty feet wide. Now, if a person wants to see that, they can see the old lock, it’s still in existence at the Wilson Dam and that was the first lock that was built. Coming through that lock you would have to take one boat through at a time or one barge through at a time. It’s a double- lift type situation or a stair step effect; you pull the first barge in and then only one barge fits in, you have to disconnect it from the other barges and they back off, they close the gate, the water fills it up, the water comes out of the upper de— upper level and then you move it into the second level and go up and it would take about an hour to lift it from one level to the other and mindful of the fact that you were only taking one barge through at a time and taking an hour. You could spend eight, ten hours just going through the Wilson lock. And, furthermore, there was a lock down below Wilson, the main Wilson lock. It was called Lock Number 1 and it was down about where the Port Authority is located, or the Indian Mound is now and it would, it was only about a ten to twelve foot lift. But, the point is, that we were working on putting those barges through the locks. So, the majors areas of work really for a deckhand was the maintenance of boat equipment, assembling the tows, we had to put all this together. One, we had to break it apart when we was going through a lock; we had to put it back together when we got up above the locks and also we’d have to drop, ah, drop these barges off along the way as to who had ever ordered what was is in that barge for the companies transported and just about anything else that we were required to do. Now, the barges, I told you that Arrow Transportation Company owned about a hundred of these barges and those are all, I mean, heavy duty steel. And they let two sets or two types and we called them the standard and the jumbo or small and large. The small barge or the standard was 175 feet long and it was 26 [ unintelligible] feet wide and it would hold 700 to 800 tons. Now, I’ve heard it translated in as to how many boxcar loads of that, but when you’re taking 800 tons and if you could even consider that as to what a load of a ten ton truck, you’ve got a lot of truck loads in one of [ unintelligible]. Now, that was just a standard barge and we had the jumbo barge. It, it was the big one and the length of that was 195 feet and it’s 35 feet wide and it would hold 1500 tons of whatever you were hauling. Some of the major things we were hauling was grain, we’d haul pulpwood, we’d haul coal, scrap metal, scrap iron, and you name it. If there was a need for it somewhere along the river, as these various ports that you see, we, we would haul. A lot of, lot of tonnage there; they tell me that primarily there’s no, not a standard barge any longer, it’s primarily the jumbo barges, because, they had the smaller ones because there was a demand for smaller, smaller loads.
Ken Johnson: Well, now, you took a load somewhere; did you return empty or was it a matter of going, we’ll say up the river and carrying maybe grain up to Chattanooga or something of that nature and then picking up something else and bringing it back down the river?
RS: We traveled the full length of the Tennessee River, and we also, the boat that I was on, the company, they [ unintelligible] on all those rivers that I’d mentioned, but ours, being one of the smaller boats, we, we traveled primarily the Tennessee River. Now, the Tennessee River is navigable from Paducah, Kentucky to Knoxville, Tennessee, which is 650 miles to Knoxville and the river is navigable only three miles above Knoxville. Now, the scenario that you were setting forth, yes, that’s the way we would do it. We may go down to Cairo, Illinois. Now, Kenneth, Cairo, Illinois is at the point that the Ohio River runs into the Mississippi River. Coming back up the Ohio River for about fifty miles you come to Paducah, Kentucky and then you come up the mouth of, of the Tennessee River. So that’s 650 miles and we may pick up a bunch of grain barges at Cairo, Illinois and then come up, come through all of those locks, and course you’ve got locks starting down at Paducah, Kentucky, you come first to Kentucky lock, then the Pickwick lock, then the Wilson lock, the Wheeler lock, you know on the way— all the way up until you’ve gone through nine of these, these big locks. But, we might pick up something at Cairo, Illinois and take it all the way to Knoxville or, we may pick up a barge in Cairo, some in Paducah, Kentucky and then drop some of them in Decatur. Decatur, there’s a lot of granaries in Decatur, so they would have a lot of use for it. So, we were constantly picking up and dropping off. Now, there may be a reason to pick up a empty barge somewhere down the way. We did haul a lot of chemical from the local area here; we might pick up a chemical barge and bring it into the chemical plants here and that would be empty. We may pick it up as we came back down the river were full, but generally we were picking stuff up and bringing it up the river full and coming back down with an empty barge.
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