Save the Sprague

Some of the remains of the Sprague looks like heaps of rusting iron pieces. I am not asking that we save every piece of the grand old boat. But at least the sternwheel, which was pictured on Monday and Tuesday, plus the two smokestacks, which I pictured yesterday, can be cleaned up and moved for display. They are easily identifiable pieces which can be seen in every photo of the steamboat.
You can barely see some of the iron pieces for vines and brush have overtaken them, looking like they are trying to pull them back into the earth.

Here's the crow's nest of the boat. If that thing could only talk! Think how it would look if it was sandblasted, repainted and mounted near the transportation museum or the MV Mississippi exhibit, with that big red sternwheel next to her and the two smokestacks erect. I can see it in my head....and it's great!

Save the Sprague. I am lifting my voice. Will you?

Save the Sprague

Here is the sternwheel of The Sprague in the tangled vines between the Yazoo Diversion Canal and Washington Street. That's a smokestack in the foreground of the photo. More photos will run for the rest of the week to bring about awareness of this majestic piece of Vicksburg history that is rusting away on the outskirts of town. The more people find out about this, the better the chances something can be done to preserve what remains. I am one voice.

State of the Sprague

One of the biggest travesties in Vicksburg, as I have stated before, is that the remains of the Sprague, once the largest paddlewheeler that plied the Mississippi River, is rusting away in weeds alongside Washington Street. These photos were taken early Saturday morning. The paddlewheel, pictured here, is just majestic when you walk underneath her. Some of the original wood, complete with red paint, is still bolted to the wheel.

I can only imagine what it would be like if the city, state, nation or a private group would pull this majestic paddlewheel out of the weeds and restore her to her former glory and place her near the downtown area where they are putting the MV Mississippi exhibit and the transportation museum. Just think of a motor being attached to the paddlewheel in a shallow pool of water and folks once again seeing how bigger than life "Big Mama" was. What a showstopper!