I guess the river channels shifted so far that some of the wrecked steamboats are under corn, now, instead of underwater. (Article cites three HUNDRED found over time!) I'm reading about one now in the Smithsonian mag; one item of note is the lynching of passengers that almost occurred over rifles smuggled onboard the boat to be used (I think I have it right) to perpeturate slavery. "Lynching" so often evokes images of slain African Americans; this one has "whitey" about to get a turn like Old West "justice" and over race issues, to boot.

Other items of note seem to have changed the scholars' sense of class values and purchasing patterns in those times.

Me, I just think it's SO cool that people go out looking for old steamboats, in corn fields, and FIND them.

~Susan