City of Louisville Steamboat

This 9.24 x 6.52-inch (23.46 x 16.56 cm) photograph of the side-wheel packet City of Louisville was taken at Cincinnati by local black photographer Richard L. Hunster. The John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge, which shows at the right, was being remodeled at the time. The City of Louisville was built in 1894 at Jeffersonville, Indiana by the Louisville and Cincinnati Packet Co. In 1894 she made a record run from Louisville to Cincinnati in 9 hours and 42 minutes, which is a speed record that has never been equaled. Two years later, she made another record run when she traveled from Cincinnati to Louisville in 5 hours and 58 minutes. The City of Louisville was crushed by ice at Cincinnati in 1918.

As steamboats replaced flatboats and keelboats as the major mode of river transportation, travel along the Ohio River became faster and easier. By the middle of the nineteenth century, more than 3,000 steamboats arrived each year at the port of Cincinnati. The city’s prominent location along the river contributed to its rapid growth, and by 1850 Cincinnati became the sixth largest city in the country. The development of railroads slowly led to the decline of steamboats. They continued to operate on the Ohio River, but their numbers dwindled. This photograph is only a sample of the approximately 8,000 images collected by Captain Frederick Way, Jr. of scenes along the Ohio and Mississippi River system.