The riverboat captain is a storyteller. Captain Don Sanders shares the stories of his long association with the river — from discovery to a way of love and life. This a part of a long and continuing story.
By Capt. Don Sanders
Special to NKyTribune
The Ohio River recently crested at 60.91 feet at 6:15 p.m. Monday, April 7 on the Cincinnati guage. For comparison, the 1997 flood hit 64.70 feet, the ninth highest crest in recorded river history, while the 2018 flood reached 60.53 feet, or the 23rd highest in the record books. Old Man River will enjoy the lofty heights and hang out for several days before returning to lower levels. As he retreats, the muddle left behind will stagger the limits of the riverbank dwellers whose lives the erratic old water-codger interrupted. Eventually, this April’s fluvial excursion will be but numbers in a book and fading memories in the minds of those who care to remember.
The sudden Great Flood of 1997 was more than “one for the books,” it was an anomaly. For reasons beyond my understanding, a great reservoir of water suddenly arose from the Gulf, formed into an atmospheric river of Biblical proportions, and slithered up the Mississippi and Ohio River Valleys, dumping enormous quantities of water as it surged northeasterly.
On the morning of Saturday, March 1, 1997, when the rain started, I recently finished my rotation as Senior Captain aboard the GRAND VICTORIA II, a magnificent casino boat at Rising Sun, Indiana, across the river from Rabbit Hash, Kentucky, the tiny burg administered by a canine mayor which some wags liken to the “Center of the Universe.” After spending Friday with my mother, Anna Margaret, I set off on Saturday morning toward home in Metropolis, Illinois, with a planned stop at my brother Richard and sister-in-law’s estate overlooking the broad Ohio River above Warsaw, Kentucky. A call from my SIL Donna informed me she planned to start her garden on Saturday, “if it didn’t rain.”
The Warsaw farm, my brother named the End of the Hunt, stretched from nearly the Ohio River’s Southern shore southward to Interstate 71. When I arrived early that fateful morning, Dick was away at his engineering job, and a steady drizzle already cancelled Donna’s plans for her garden. With the rain steadily increasing, I stayed for one cup of stout Sanders-style coffee before setting off on the 4 ½ hour, 300-mile ride home to Metropolis, a small Southern Illinois town dubbed by local community supporters, “The Home of Superman.”
At the bottom of the hill, not far from the End of the Hunt Farm, near midnight on the night of December 4, 1868, two palatial steamers, the AMERICA and the UNITED STATES, both belonging to the U.S. Mail Line, hauling freight and passengers between Cincinnati, Ohio and Louisville, Kentucky, collided and burned with a loss of 74 lives.
Confusion arose as to which side the swiftly moving behemoths were to pass one another after the regular pilot, Captain Charles Dufour, left the AMERICA, upstream at Ghent, Kentucky, to visit relatives. His relief, Captain Napolean P. Jenkins, an “elderly extra,” so noted steamboat author and historian, Captain Fred Way, misunderstood which side the boats usually passed on.
The steamboats were closing on one another around 30 mph when the upbound AMERICA rammed the downbound sidewheeler UNITED STATES just forward of amidships. The impact started a fire on the UNITED STATES carrying a consignment of barreled petroleum oil. Immediately, the AMERICAN went to the aid of passengers on the burning UNITED STATES and caught fire, herself. As reported, the AMERICA probably would have survived had she not done so.
After the disaster, the UNITED STATES became the Second UNITED STATES after a thorough rebuilding. Captain Way’s Packet Directory, 1848-1994, notes: “The wreck of the AMERICA lay close to Bryants Creek, and as late as 1895, it showed in extremely low water. Relic hunters often were rewarded by finding souvenirs.” Even into my own time, I recall hearing bits and pieces from the wreck still coming to light, usually a rusty bolt or a fragment of china from the galley.
By the time I passed abreast of the Steamer BELLE OF LOUISVILLE moored at her dock above Louisville’s McAlpine Lock and Dam, the venerable steamboat, built by James Rees & Sons, of Pittsburgh in 1914, the first steamboat I served aboard when it was named the Steamer AVALON, was barely visibly through the driving rain. For a moment, memories of my two seasons scurried through my mind of the people and adventures I met and experienced aboard the 19th-century-style steamboat as an eager 17 and 18-year-old lad away from home for the first time:
“Captain Ernie Wagner, Mate Doc Hawley, Red Wilke, Cairo, Jackie Armstrong, Blackie Williams, Big Bill Willis, Capt. John Emery Edgington, St. Louis, Alton, Ed Smith, Bubba Chinn, Hannibal, Rock Island, Dubuque, Gutenberg, Genoa, Preacher Lollar, Jake and Johnny Sidell, Genoa, LaCrosse, Shorty Robinson, Leroy Batteau, St. Paul, Chief Urbie Williams, Harry Ricco…”
“Hey! Get your eyes on the road and quit daydreaming,” I screamed to myself as a barely visible semi-trailer truck swamped my car as I sped past the BELLE toward the highway connector going around the Falls City in the direction of Metropolis, near the farthest stretch of the Ohio River. The driving rain was unlike anything I’d ever ridden in, before or since. Considering the hazardous driving conditions, I was not the only fool on the road. Despite the circumstances, my machine performed flawlessly. Indeed, too, I was overly eager to return home to my family after nearly three weeks’ absence. In particular, I recall passing semi-rigs almost blindly in the relentless downpour without seeing more than a few feet ahead of the front of my car.
Eventually reaching Paducah, I followed Interstate 24 across the yet unswolled Lower Ohio River to Metropolis. Soon, I passed the imposing bronze Superman statue on Superman Square, proceeding to my home on West 19th and Baynes Streets. The relentless driving rain poured as incessantly as I pulled in front of our house, as it had for 300 miles from Dick’s farm to my driveway.
As soon as the atmospheric river of Amazonian proportions emptied on the much smaller Ohio River Valley, the Ohio began rising accordingly. My father, Jess Sanders, Jr., noted that the Ohio River rose faster during the 1997 Flood than during the record high water episode of 1937. Thankfully for all living along the river, the Flood of ’97 crested at 64.7 feet on the Cincinnati guage rather than the all-time historic recording of 79.9 feet during the ’37 Flood.
Dad also commented that the high water of 1997 did not last as long as the great Flood of 1937. But that was untrue on the Lower Ohio, where I was, as nearly 1,000 miles of water accumulated while attempting to drain into the Mississippi River just 40 miles below Metropolis. New homeowners, several miles inland from the Ohio River, unexpectedly found themselves in deep water, not knowing they’d built their dream homes on undiscovered branches of the Ohio River flood plain. Happily, our home escaped water intrusion with only a large, dirty puddle at the intersection of the two streets bordering the house.
My former employer, Players Riverboat Casino, which operated a handsome faux sidewheeler by the same name, took extraordinary measures to remain open during the high water, which lasted long past my two weeks off. The usual time worked and the time off for a licensed marine officer aboard most casino boats was two weeks on and two weeks off. Working those 12-hour shifts for 14 straight days was challenging, but two weeks’ vacation awaited at the end of each seemingly long hitch.
After my time to return to Rising Sun, I learned that the Grand Victoria Casino closed after the main roads into the isolated hamlet along the river flooded and became impassable. However, by the time I arrived back, little trace of the effects of the Flood of 1997 remained. One of the few, though not visible except aboard our luxurious stern paddlewheeler as we cruised close to the Indiana shore, was the carcass of an unfortunate cow hanging by the neck from a fork in a tall tree up the hill a distance from the river’s normal shoreline. The bright yellow remnants of a Piper Cub airplane, washed from a farmer’s private grass airstrip, dangled from another tree. Otherwise, nothing as evident remained of the high water episode of 1997.
Captain Don Sanders is a river man. He has been a riverboat captain with the Delta Queen Steamboat Company and with Rising Star Casino. He learned to fly an airplane before he learned to drive a “machine” and became a captain in the USAF. He is an adventurer, a historian and a storyteller. Now, he is a columnist for the NKyTribune, sharing his stories of growing up in Covington and his stories of the river. Hang on for the ride — the river never looked so good.
Purchase Captain Don Sanders’ The River book
Capt. Don Sanders The River: River Rat to steamboatman, riding ‘magic river spell’ to 65-year adventure is now available for $29.95 plus handling and applicable taxes. This beautiful, hardback, published by the Northern Kentucky Tribune, is 264-pages of riveting storytelling, replete with hundreds of pictures from Capt. Don’s collection — and reflects his meticulous journaling, unmatched storytelling, and his appreciation for detail. This historically significant book is perfect for the collections of every devotee of the river.
You may purchase your book by mail from the Northern Kentucky Tribune — or you may find the book for sale at all Roebling Books locations and at the Behringer Crawford Museum and the St. Elizabeth Healthcare gift shops.
Click here to order your Captain Don Sanders’ ‘The River’ now.
Don Sanders’ stories are so enjoyable and educational to follow. I want to thank you for featuring them on the NKY Tribune site.
Thanks, Capt. Don and NKYTribune, for this week’s enjoyable and instructive stories that show in the grand scheme of Creation, it’s really Old Man River that owns all the real estate in his valleys.
Yet again Capt Don brings a slice of river history to life. He reminds those of us who experienced this of details we may have forgotten & teaches folks new to the story important facts tied to even older history.. Thanks NKy Tribune for letting him share history & human tales for all to enjoy..