'Til I Hitched a Ride on a Riverboat Queen

by Callie

But back to the cruise:

Remember Saturday, January 21, 2012? Most days of this new year have been relatively warm with no form of exciting precipitation. You know, except for the ice storm on the night of Jan. 20 that left plants, buildings, roads, and walkways covered in ice all that day.


Ice can be dangerous but so darn pretty.

Well, it was also the day chosen months and months in advance for the 1937 Flood Anniversary Cruise: an all-day cruise on BB Riverboat's Belle of Cincinnati from their port in Newport, KY, downriver to Rabbit Hash, and back to Newport.


This ice was all over the Belle.

A little ice was no deterrent to those who had actually survived the flood 75 years before so, slowly but surely, we all shuffled our feet on the icy ramp up to the boat and set sail.

Passengers were assigned a table on the second or third deck of the boat for meal times and the first deck was reserved for lectures. This was an educational cruise, after all. However, the lectures piped throughout the entire boat so if some passengers chose to stay at their table, play cards, watch the river go by through the window, and drink Bloody Marys all day, they could still hear the lecture.


View of the second deck's seating area. And that breakfast was delicious.

We listened to two lectures on our way down river. The first, given by Dan Hurley from Channel 12 news and the Cincinnati Historical Society, did his lecture on the 1937 flood and its impact on Cincinnati residents. As a Folklorist, I really appreciated his approach to his material: collecting oral histories from people who actually lived through the flood. It was amazing to hear some of the comments after the lecture by people who were born into the chaos right before, during, and after the flood and were on the trip celebrating their 75th birthdays. The stories they shared were stories they had been told their entire lives: about how their parents, with baby it tow or mom pregnant to the point of exploding, escaped their homes in rowboats.


The lovely lecture deck.

Understanding the importance of collecting oral stories from individuals who survived this flood or had heard stories about it throughout their lives, the Boone County Library was on board in a tiny room labeled the “Oral History Room” for the day. This was a place passengers could go to record their stories to be archived.


Between lectures, I braved the ice and cold and took in the river scenes. Here, we're preparing to go under the 275 bridge between KY and IN.

The second lecture, given by Greg Bogosian was on the stories about Seckatary Hawkins and his gang who solved mysteries in a river town. These books were based in the Northern Kentucky area and author Robert Schulkers’s familiarity with the Ohio and Licking Rivers. Of course, the flood affected these poor fellas and their solving of mysteries.

We were scheduled to arrive in Rabbit Hash around noon so a bit before, I shuffled over the ice to the pilot house with my dad. In his natural environment, behind a microphone and on top of a riverboat, he pointed out notable sites as we approached our town and gave a brief history of the place.


My favorite part was the view from the Pilot House. The man in the foreground is driving the boat and that's my dad behind him lecturing to the whole boat.

I thoroughly enjoyed tagging along and was able to see my town from a whole different perspective.



Did you know all the roofs were red?

It took a while to chop the ice from the platform. The crew used salt, hammers, and anything they could get their hands on.



Passengers finally were able to file off the boat CAREFULLY and explore Rabbit Hash until 1:30. In that time, Rabbit Hash’s Scalded Hog served them a lunch of ham sandwiches and bean soup.

We departed right on time and headed back to Newport. Soon after our departure, more lectures began.

First up was Rick Bell (who will also be speaking at the Behringer Crawford flood exhibit opening on Feb. 17) who wrote The Great Flood of 1937, the first book completely dedicated to the subject of the flood. He focused on how the flood impacted the Louisville area and also showed many images of how the flood impacted towns along the entire length of the Ohio River. These images were amazing and I'm not showing them here because they're all available in his book.


During another trip outside, I witnessed a barge traffic jam near Lawrenceburg, IN's Tanner's Creek Generating Station.

Our last topic of the day was on the history of steamboats, given by Chuck Parrish. Chuck is retired from the Army Corps of Engineers and is now on the advisory board for the Rivers Institute at Hanover College. Part of his presentation was a viewing of the Two Hundred Years of Steamboating: 1811-2011, a film that provides the history of the first steamboat to go up and down the Ohio River. The New Orleans, captained by Nicholas Roosevelt, made a voyage that forever changed our nation. (I know that sounds corny but it is very true.)

After all of the lectures, we had an official happy hour with old timey snacks followed soon after by another wonderful meal cooked aboard the Belle. It was a good time to unwind. Throughout the day, Banjo Bob played wonderful riverboat/bluegrass tunes for us and during happy hour, Dad joined him and sang some songs that he had written about the river.


Dad and Banjo Bob playing some river tunes.

We were even fortunate enough to have Captain Alan Bernstein, owner of BB Riverboats, share some interesting stories about the river and the Belle of Cincinnati.


The Belle was originally built to be a gambling boat in Iowa and was called the Emerald Lady. This "Emerald Lady" is still on the boat when you enter. She is etched onto glass.

The most entertaining of these was a tale explaining why the Belle of Cincinnati is considered a pirate vessel and prominently flies a pirate flag. (This is a very involved story about a race with the Belle of Louisville and some stolen golden antlers.)


Aboard a pirate ship and they got a flag to prove it

Many people had been itching all day to enjoy the river going by out on the decks but the cold air and dangerous ice kept many away. However, as we approached Cincinnati in the dark and could see the beautiful lights, people ventured out for photos. A search light was also positioned on the Kentucky side of the boat to shine at 80 feet providing a visual of the buildings and roadways we were passing that would have been underwater 75 years ago from that exact day.


Spotlighting a church for the sake of history. Imagine that high water!

We all had hoped for the beautiful weather that we had been seeing before and even after the boat ride. However, it was agreed upon by many that the cold air and the ice really helped to capture the discomfort and chaos of those who lived through the 1937 flood. They were cold and uncomfortable but were forced to overcome in order to survive.

Although we too were cold, afraid of slipping, and very tired from our 12 hours in the frigid river air, the trip ended with a great feeling. We’d spent the entire day enjoying ourselves despite the weather and had repeatedly discussed how in a disaster, it is human nature to pull together and care for those around you. It was a nice reminder that goodness can come from tragedy and that while many homes were lost, very few lives were.


That line from "Proud Mary" makes perfect sense.

The end... finally.