Snagging History…

“We need to get a few shots of the snagboat,” Steve said. Snagboat? Until this week,
I had never heard the term.

My partner for the day, Steve Gilbert, whom I was helping with a video project for the
TravelnAlabama tourism channel he operates in west Alabama, headed along Pickens
county Highway 14 northwest from Aliceville. In a few minutes, were pulling up to
the massive Tenn-Tom Waterway, and the Tom Bevill Lock & Dam And Visitor Center,
home of the U.S. Snagboat Montgomery, a workhorse from an earlier era.

Steam-powered boats, like the Montgomery, dominated transportation and commerce
for much of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Built in 1926 in Charleston, SC, for
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the 178 foot sternwheeler Montgomery spent nearly
60 years working to keep seven major rivers here in the South (including the Alabama,
Coosa, Black Warrior and Tombigbee) navigable.

As the name snagboat implies, large grapples and clamshell scoops suspended from a boom
on the front of the vessel snagged and removed trees, sunken logs and other debris that
might otherwise obstruct river traffic. Snagboats like the Montogmery provided a critical
service because steamboats in use at the time were susceptible to hitting river snags and
sinking. Vessels like the Montogmery were usually operated alongside barges, on which
snagged debris was placed and then hauled away.

Here’s the Montogmery at work:

The Montgomery, described as one of the hardest working snagboats in the Southeast,
has been carefully restored and is on permanent dry dock display at the Visitor Center.
You can walk on board and inside this vessel, getting a taste of what life was like for
the Montgomery’s crew of 12 to 14 men.

From the Pilot House, the pilot and operator controlled all navigation and snagging operations:

Snagging equipment controls:

The view from the bridge (the Montgomery’s derrick could lift 45 tons, even heavier than me
after I’ve had a double meat cheeseburger, fries and large shake):

A telegraph was used to communicate with the engine room where two high pressure steam
engines provided power. Dials were stationed in both the pilot house…

…and the engine room. By moving the levers, the pilot relayed important information to the
engine room crew:

Paddlewheelers, invented in the late 1700s, were driven by steampowered paddle wheels and
represented a huge step forward in transportation, opening the way for goods and people to be
moved along America’s rivers. Early versions of the vessels made steam for their engines by
burning wood; later boats, like the Montgomery, used coal.

Montgomery’s paddle wheels were made of steel and wood and measured 18 feet in diameter
and 20 feet in length.

The boat’s original Scotch boiler weighs over 40 tons–that’s about 8% of the snagboat’s total
weight.

Crew quarters–not exactly a five star hotel!

At the time of the Montgomery’s retirement in 1982, she was one of only two remaining
steam-powered snagboats in the U.S.

The boat was based in Montgomery at one point and later in Tuscaloosa. The Montgomery has
some interesting history besides just removing snags — in 1964, it assisted with the raising of
the remaining section of the Confederate Gunboat Chattahoochee from the Chattahoochee
River, and in 1984, it was used as a set in the television movie Louisiana.

Designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1989, the Montogmery now sits quietly alongside
the Tenn-Tomm, waiting to be explored and given the chance to tell her story about a time when
American enterprise looked in awe at the mighty paddlewheeler.

You can find more information about the Montgomery here…

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