H.D. WILLIAMS tugboat 1919

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aukepalmhof
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H.D. WILLIAMS tugboat 1919

Post by aukepalmhof » Wed Jun 03, 2020 2:03 am

The stamp was issued in 1929 to commemorate the completion of the Ohio River Canalisation, the stamp is designed after a photograph of an official U.S. Army Corps of Engineers photo of the towboat H.D. WILLIAMS in the Monongahela River Lock No 5 at Brownsville, Pa on 4 October 1920

The Ohio River is formed by the junction of the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers in Pittsburgh. It runs more than 967 miles from Pittsburgh to Cairo, Illinois where it empties into the Mississippi River and is joined along the way by a number of important rivers. Untamed, seasonal fluctuations in water depth made these important routes of commerce unnavigable. In 1875 work began on the canalization of the Ohio River, utilizing a system of dams and locks guaranteeing a nine-foot channel from Pittsburgh, Pa. to Cairo, Ill. In 1929 the Corps of Engineers completed the project transforming the Ohio, Monongahela, and Allegheny rivers into a navigable stair-stepped chain of lakes.

The stern-wheel steel-hulled towboat H.D. WILLIAMS, the hull was built by American Bridge Co., at Ambridge, Pa, in 1919, and she was completed and fitted out by the owner, the Carnagie Illinois Steel Company at Braddock, Pa., the same year.
Dim. 53.34 x 9.75 x 1.61m. (average draught).
Fitted out with Mississippi type boilers, powered by compound condensing engines, 800 hp. Fitted with three submerged rudders. Her stern-wheel had a diameter of 6.40m.

25 December 1919 in service on the Monongahela River, principally used to tow coal barges from the H.C. Frick Mines to Clairton By-Product Coke Plant.
29 October 1932 she was renamed I.LAMONT HUGHES, in honeur of the President of the Carnagie Steel Co. thereafter operated on the Allegheny, Monongahela, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers.
1938-1940 Out of service, while the hull was renewed.
In fall 1944 she was chartered to moving coal barges from the Isabella Mine to Weirton, w v.
1950 Sold to Crain Brothers in Pittsburgh and renamed ALLEGHENY, but she was soon taken out of service and dismantled in Pittsburgh.

Source: Watercraft Philately1957 page12 and Internet.
United States 1929 2c sg 682, scott 681
Attachments
I. LAMONT HUGHUS.jpg
1929 Lock-No-5-Monongahela-River-Brownsville-Pennsylvania2 .jpg

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