Folks, The 9-foot channel (guaranteed) is a product of our modern channelized navigable rivers. It's due to the efforts of the Army Corps of Engineers. The many dams on the rivers allow the water behind those dams to pool up in hopes of secureing the guaranteed depth. Still, in low water years, dredging is often necessary.

A loaded barge has a draft of 9 feet. Needs 9 feet or MORE to navigate. (Empty they have draft of about one foot.)

In Mark Twain's time, the average life of a wooden-hulled steamboat was about 2 years. "THE CITY OF BAYOU SARA", which has a fine song about it's demise, was built at Jeffersonville, Indiana in 1884. She burned at New Madrid, Missouri 12/5/1885. Most sank from collissions with sawyers and snags and sandbars that weren't there on the downbound passage but appeared over night. Steel hulls helped a bunch though. There's only one steamboat (of the six remaining on the Mississippi River) that has a wooden hull.

Anybody know which boat that might be? And how does that boat defy the law against having wooden hulls on boats carrying passengers??

Art