This week’s article was given by a descendant of E.E. Price, a citizen of Logansport who was passionate about the history of steamboats. It was published for The Light and Champion on March 28, 1997. It gives a brief history of river boats traveling on the Sabine River.

From steamboats to bass boats, the Sabine River had seen drastic changes in man’s transportation in the past century. Today, those steamboats of the 1800s have literally become part of the river, sharing a watery grave within yards of the Logansport Bridge which separates Texas and Louisiana.

Glen Price is passionate about the study of the history and has a special interest in the steamboats that once traveled the waters of the Sabine River because his father, Captain E.E. Price, was a steamboat captain on the Sabine.

Capt. Price was originally from old Shelbyville, which is about a mile from present Shelbyville. He married Annie Polk of San Augustine and became the captain of the Maud Howell.

In 1838, The Velocipede was the first steamboat to come up the river according to Mr. Price.

“Logansport was a trading center”, he said. “Many people from the nearby counties of East Texas and surround areas came to trade and visit. In subsequent years, many steamers made the trip to Logansport area, bringing goods from the Gulf area and returning with raw material, mostly cotton and lumber, to be loaded onto ocean-going vessels which delivered the cargo to both American and foreign ports.”

Back then there were many hazards involved with traveling on the Sabine River, such as wild game, low-hanging limbs, sand bars and rafts, or log jams. Trees hung over the river and interlocked to make a sort of tunnel. Very often the boats would have to stop and the crew would saw the branches so the stacks on top of the steamboat could get by.

The river was as much as 15-20 feet deep in most places, but the captain would still have to watch for the occasional sandbars and shoals, which are often found in Southern waterways. The captain also had to be on the constant lookout for log jams, called rafts that could puncture the boat’s hull.  In those days timber company did not have trucks and good roads, so they would transport the logs to the sawmills by tying chains around large groups of logs and sending them down the river.

The steamboats on the Sabine were powered by wood-burning boilers. One hazard was that the sparks from the steam might set the wood on fire, so they kept screens on top of the stacks to cool the sparks from the boilers. At night, the steamboats would tie up and the crew would take on wood for the broilers. The boats would stay tied to the bank until daylight because they were not equipped with lights and could not see where they were going.

On these steamboats, Price said the crew slept on the lower deck and the passengers and captain slept on the upper deck. The Neches Belle, which was the pride of the riverboats on the Sabine, carried 1,000 bales of cotton on the main deck and on the second deck had a saloon and a band for passenger entertainment.

Mr. Price said the Neches was built in Beaumont in 1890 at a cost of $3,000, not including machinery. Capt. Will and Pearly Bunn built the steamer with lumber purchased at the Reliance Lumber Company. The machinery came from another boat, the Vicksburg.

The restroom facilities on the steamboats were pretty primitive. They probably had a can-like container, and dumped it overboard, but on the larger boats they probably had pump-type toilets that you could flush.

Going south the boats mostly transported cotton, furs and farm products. Coming upriver, the boats would bring good such as beds, pianos, caskets and stoves to area residents.

One steamboat made history by transporting the only original international granite maker between the United States and the Republic of Texas. Mr. Price said in 1840 the surveyors and representatives of both governments came to Logansport by steamboat, the Albert Gallatin, and camped at Logansport while preparing to continue the survey north. The marker, set just north of Logansport in 1841, remains there today.

In the late 1800s the timber industry began to cut timber close to the banks of the Sabine. This, coupled with the cutting of cypress trees for shake shingles, caused the banks of the river to erode as the roots deteriorated. Sediment washed into the water and made it shallower and harder for boats to navigate.

The steam boats Maud Howell sunk about 100 feet north of the traffic bridge on the Texas side, while the steamboat Neches Bell is resting on the bottom about 75 feet north of the traffic bridge on the Louisiana side. The Extra is also resting 100 yards south of the railroad bridge. The bell from the Uncle Ben for many years rang the start and finish of school for Center elementary.

During the Civil War, the Uncle Ben was used at the Battle of Sabine Pass (where the Sabine River dumps into the Gulf). During the battle, the crew of the Uncle Ben used cotton bales on deck for armament to protect from enemy gunfire. It later hit a snag and is sunk south of Logansport near what is now Murphey Road.