CITY OF ALTON
Built: 1860, Madison, Indiana.
Type: Sidewheel, wooden hull packet.
Size: 283′ x 40′ x 7′.
Engines: 36′ – 9 ft.
Operating between St. Louis and Alton, her master was Captain Mitchell, and in 1861 Captain Barnes. The CITY of ALTON was involved in one of the first acts of daring in the Civil War. Sympathy for the South was running high in St. Louis in April 1861, when 10,000 muskets were stolen from the St. Louis arsenal under cover of night and taken to Alton, aboard this boat. Landing before daybreak, the muskets were transferred to waiting freight cars of the Chicago and Alton Railroad and transported to Springfield, Illinois, where the troops were supplied with arms. The CITY of ALTON served in General Grant’s fleet during the Tennessee campaign. After the war, she ran between St. Louis and Memphis.
More boats to be added …