"City of Camden"

A sternwheel steamboat built in Jeffersonville, Indiana in 1893, the "City of Camden" ran 175' in length and 35' in breadth, with a depth of 5' and boasted three 40" by 20' boilers. She primarily operated between New Orleans and Camden, Arkansas on the Mississippi, Red, Black, and Ouachita Rivers under Capt. L. V. Cooley.¹ The steamer made her debut arrival in Camden, Arkansas at 9:00 o'clock on the morning of 20 June 1893 to great fanfare, and as she neared the city's port on the Ouachita River, she was "moving with the grace of a swan." The city's factories blew their whistles to announce the steamboat's arrival, and soon crowds surged to the wharf for the locals to see the boat.²

After plying the Ouachita River trade for eleven years, Capt. Cooley sold the steamboat to Capt. Lumsden of Mobile, Alabama in November 1904. She made her first trip from Mobile to New Orleans as an independent steamer in the Alabama river trade that month.³

Notes:

¹Way, Frederick, Jr. Way’s Packet Directory, 1848–1983: Passenger Steamboats of the Mississippi River System Since the Advent of Photography in Mid-Continent America. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1983, p. 90.

²"The Times-Democrat" (New Orleans, LA), 21 June 1893, p. 8, column 5.

³"The Times-Democrat," 27 November 1904, p. 29, column 4.