In Kansas City, MO, we visited The Steamboat Arabia. What a fascinating place! In 1988, 5 guys decided to find and dig up a sunken steamboat. Seems in the mid-1800’s, at least 400 steamboats sank on the Missouri River delivering goods and passengers to frontier, mostly due to shifting sand bars and submerged trees. The Arabia was carrying 200 tons of goods upstream to all the little various general stores that were popping up to serve the new pioneers, fur traders and Indians. The river shifted since this boat sank so the boat was found inland, perfectly preserved underground in an aquifer. They brought up the engines, the 200 tons of cargo and about 12 feet of the bow. The rest of the boat they left underground.
The cargo consisted of all the things you might find in an 1800’s general store – clothes, boots, guns, china, beads, silverware, key/locks, and so on, and so on.
And I have even more photos. There was dishes and glass, wooden clothespins, coffee pots, spittoons, candles, flatirons, scales, jackknives, clay pipes, thimbles, yarn, rubber shoes and boots, bed keys, pistols, drills, nails, axes and handles, clothes, fabric and much more. Totally fascinating glimpse into 1850.