Prior to modern times waterways served as man's
primary means of travel and consequently most trade centers and
metropolitan areas are on navigable rivers, lakes and the sea
coast. Just as the Ohio River was important to the development
of Louisville, the navigable Green and Barren rivers have been
instrumental to the growth of Bowling Green and Warren County.
Cheaper and more efficient than travel by horse and wagon, the
water carried larger and heavier loads greater distances than
could be hauled overland.
Rivers:
Kentucky's First Highways
Getting goods to market was crucial to businessmen,
and early settlers in south central Kentucky utilized the area's
"first highway" to do so. They loaded flatboats with
hams, tobacco, and other agricultural products and poled them
downriver to markets in Evansville, Louisville, and New Orleans.
After 1840 steamboats carried passengers and goods to and from
distant ports, and even after the advent of the railroad in the
mid-nineteenth century, river travel remained important, especially
to areas not served by rail.
Warren County was founded in 1796 by Robert Moore
and named for Revolutionary War hero Joseph Warren, who died
at the Battle of Bunker Hill. In 1797, Moore gave two acres for
the county's public buildings and a year later donated another
parcel of land for the creation of Bowling Green. The town grew
slowly because area settlers were farmers and more interested
in agricultural endeavors than town life. To get their produce
to market, farmers used the rivers. As the area's production
increased, the river's importance also escalated. Merchants offered
to take produce to market and opened shops in town that offered
goods imported from distant places. Entrepreneurs interested
in trade built docks and warehouses and by the 1810s Bowing Green
could boast a dozen or so flourishing establishments that offered
goods and services to and from distant markets.
Importance
of River Travel
With the advent of the steamboat on the Ohio and
Mississippi rivers, entrepreneurs foresaw that the steamboat
could be of great economic advantage. Unfortunately, the Green
and Barren rivers were filled with a variety of impediments to
paddle wheelers--snags, overhanging branches, and a narrow, winding
channel. Improvements were needed. In 1828, a group of volunteers
worked sixty days, often in water up to their necks, and made
initial improvements which resulted in a wider and safer lane.
In January the tiny steamboat United States arrived at
Bowling Green and unloaded barrels of sugar, flour and other
scarce commodities on the riverbanks. At least one area resident
wondered if the community could ever consume so much!
More extensive improvements, including locks and
dams, came during the 1830s. Consequently, by the 1840s, steamboats
easily traveled the rivers, transporting mail and locally-produced
tobacco, timber, livestock, feathers, hides, and other goods
to Evansville and Louisville and returning up the river with
manufactured products as well as sugar, coffee and other food
stuffs not locally grown. Bowling Green also enjoyed vigorous
trade with New Orleans, a town served by ocean-going vessels
that brought items from Europe and the American east coast. Because
of the steamboat, residents of the Bowling Green area could buy
goods available anywhere in the nation.
Steamboat
Excursions
Steamboats also catered to tourists. The opening
of the L&N railroad in 1859 allowed for cheaper and more
efficient transportation of marketable goods; therefore, steamboats
focused on replacing lost revenue with popular tourist packages.
For example, people often took cruises from Evansville, or Bowling
Green to Mammoth Cave. Many newlywed couples spent their honeymoons
on the Chaperon, enjoying the four-day cruise from Evansville
to Mammoth Cave. Cruises were popular because they offered attractive
quarters, sumptuous dining, and romantic moonlit scenery. Some
steamboats employed musicians to entertain the passengers, and
others carried traveling shows and small circuses to communities
along the river. The arrival of a showboat stirred up excitement
and crowds gathered to board the boat while it was temporarily
tied at the dock.
Civil
War and the River
While the river made Bowling Green an important
commercial center, it also put the town and surrounding area
in jeopardy during the Civil War. Both sides wanted control of
Bowling Green because access to the river (and the newly completed
L&N railroad) provided convenient invasion and supply routes
between Union Kentucky and Confederate Tennessee. Despite the
governor's short-lived proclamation of "neutrality,"
Confederate troops rushed into Bowling Green in mid-September
1861 and for five months about 20,000 soldiers camped in the
vicinity. Soldiers and civilians alike expected a battle in the
area but it never took place.
On Valentine's Day, 1862 the Confederates evacuated
south central Kentucky and for the remainder of the war the area
stayed under Union control. As one of their last acts, the Confederates
jammed Lock Number 3 on the Green River with logs and Lock Number
1 on the Barren with boulders. On their arrival, federal authorities
closed the rivers to all traffic except their own, including
the small mail boats they feared might carry "contraband
of war." From time to time large federal armies came through
the Bowling Green area. The Union army operated a number of hospitals,
chased guerrillas, prepared for raids from John Hunt Morgan that
never materialized and guarded the river and railroad. At the
war's end the locks were cleared and although river men believed
the locks and dams were in dangerous condition, commercial travel
resumed.
Decline
of River Travel
Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth
century, steamboats regularly traveled the Barren and Green rivers.
Some of the better-known vessels were christened the Evansville,
the Bowling Green, the Emma, the Speed,
the Kenois, the Lena Mae, and the Kalista.
Despite the size and power of these packets, they were frequent
victims of fire, explosion and collision. Few newspapers of the
era lacked at least one notice of a steamboat accident somewhere
in the nation and many reported terrible disasters resulting
in great loss of life. The Evansville burned in 1931,
when a discarded cigarette started a fire in the oil room. The
Bowling Green sank after colliding with a rock during
a storm.
The use of steamboats decreased somewhat after
the Civil War, bowing to cheaper and more rapid transportation
by rail. Bowling Green was a major stop on the main line of the
Louisville and Nashville Railroad. In the early twentieth century
the automobile became a popular mode of transportation and by
the 1930s the steamboat had ceased to be a major travel factor.
Today, none ply the waters of the Green and Barren; only fishing
and pleasure boats use the rivers. But for nearly a century and
a half the river was one of Bowling Green's major "highways,"
and linked the area to distant markets and helped make Bowling
Green the commercial center of south central Kentucky.
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