The 1931 former U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dredge Captain Meriwether
Lewis is a dry-berthed historic museum vessel displayed in an excavated and
diked the Missouri River on the outskirts Brownville, Nebraska. Captain
Meriwether Lewis was listed Historic Places on October 29, 1977.
Owned and operated by the Meriwether Lewis Foundation, Inc., boat basin on
the banks of of Brownville, Nebraska. in the National Register of . Owned and
operated by the the vessel has also housed the Museum of Missouri River History
since June 1981.
Captain Meriwether Lewis as Built and Maintained
As built in 1931, Captain Meriwether Lewis is a steel-hulled sidewheel
dredge with a steel and wood superstructure. Originally riveted, the hull
underwent some later repair and replacement; the bottom was replaced with
continuous-weld steel plate in 1962. Captain Meriwether Lewis is 268.11
feet in length with a 50.0-foot beam, and 8.6-foot depth of hold, a 4.6 to 5.0-
foot draft, and displaces 1,456 tons. The height of the vessel from bottom to
superstructure is 48 feet; with the stacks up, the vessel's height is 62.6 feet.
The hull is of typical dredge design--a shallow oblong hull with longitudinal
and transverse bulkheads that strengthen the vessel and reinforce the bottom in
the event the dredge grounds on a shoal or sandbar.
The riveted steel decks and lower portions of the superstructure support a
large wooden house that covers much of the hull. The superstructure is a
two-level structure. The lower level, on the main deck, is divided into four
major areas: 1) the open dredge intake and derrick area; 2) the engineroom; 3)
the boiler flat; and 4) the machine shop. The upper level, on the Texas deck, is
also divided into four major areas: 1) an open central engineroom well
surrounded by fourteen staterooms and heads; 2) the galley, with separate
wardroom and mess; 3) "bunkhouse" style crew quarters; and 4) the chartroom,
flanked by the captain and chief engineer's cabins. Atop the
superstructure, on the hurricane deck, are the twin stacks and the pilothouse
with flying bridges forward. Captain Meriwether Lewis was built to
accommodate 58 people, usually operating with a crew of 52 aboard, with 11 crew
members required for one shift.
The dredge was propelled by two 800-h.p. horizontal compound condensing
engines 20 x 40 inches with a 7-foot stroke built by the vessel's builders, the
Marietta Manufacturing Co. of Mount Pleasant, West Virginia. The engines
drove Lewis' two steel and white oak sidewheels, each 25 feet in diameter and
13.6 feet wide. Steam was provided through the dredge's two diesel-fired
water-tube boilers built by the Foster-Wheeler Corporation of New York.
The pumping engine, located on the keelson, is a single 1,300-h.p. triple-
expansion marine steam engine manufactured as engine no. 1507 by the American
Shipbuilding Co. of Lorain, Ohio. Drawing river water from the Missouri, the
pumping engine directed water into a 250-h.p. steam turbine once it was
filtered. From the turbine the water was jetted into the river bottom or bank
through 38 nozzles. As the face of the cut collapsed or the bottom was cut up,
the large 36-inch diameter intake pumped the nearly liquid mud at 40 , 000-g . p
.m . out into the 34-inch diameter discharge pipe, which attached aft and ran
out on floating pontoons for a distance of 500 to 1,000 feet. The pipe was set
on a center-pivoting mount on each pontoon to make a snaking line. The last
section of pipe on its pontoon was steered by a member of the crew in a small
"dog house." The snaking pontoon line was steered by directing the force of the
discharged water and mud into a baffle plate.
To dredge, .Captain Meriwether Lewis would set two hollow steel piles by
jetting water through them. Once the piles were set, the vessel would back up
along the line of the channel to be dredged until the full 3,600-foot length of
1-1/8-inch steel cable was reached. Using two massive winches at the port and
starboard sides of the bow, Lewis would slowly move forward, cutting a 50-foot
wide, 20-foot deep channel. The vessel was capable of dredging, on an average,
80,000 cubic yards of spoil. A large derrick, manufactured by the American Hoist
and Derrick Co. of St. Paul, Minnesota, was located at the bow and was used to
set and pull the piles; to anchor, two 20-inch square steel spuds, 38 and 42
feet long, were dropped into the bottom to hold the vessel fast in the swift
river current.
Present Appearance of Captain Meriwether Lewis
Other than the periodic repair of her machinery and the replacement of
some portions, such as two generators, bottom hull plates, and the discharge
pipe, which has the date 12-12-60 etched into its surface, Captain Meriwether
Lewis remained basically unaltered through 37 years of operation. The only
post-career change to the vessel was the removal of 28 bunks and lockers from
the crew quarters aft and the installation of display cases and panels to create
the Museum of Missouri River History in 1981. The vessel was removed from the
water in 1977 to avoid sinking or flood damage in a constantly fluctuating
Missouri River. Placed in a specially excavated and diked basin on the bank,
Captain Meriwether Lewis rests atop concrete capped pilings and steel
I-beams. The level of the basin is equivalent to the dredge's waterline, and at
a distance Lewis appears much as she did when afloat. Displayed as if in
operation, Captain Meriwether Lewis is tethered by her cables to the two steel
piles used when dredging. Two sections of the pontoon-supported discharge line
are displayed off the aft port quarter, one being the last section with the dog
house and baffle plate for steering the line. The vessel is maintained in
excellent condition, is clean and exhibits no major signs of rust or
deterioration.
Statement of Significance:
The 1931 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dredge Captain Meriwether Lewis is
one of only a handful of surviving U.S. Army Corps of Engineers vessels built to
control the Nation's inland waters. None of these vessels dates to earlier than
the 1920s. One of the largest and oldest of these vessels, and possessing a high
degree of integrity, .Captain Meriwether Lewis is of national significance as
one of the best preserved examples of an inland waters dredge and as the best
preserved pipe-line suction cutter dredge in the United States. Part of a
comprehensive plan by the federal government for flood control and to improve
navigation on the upper reaches of the Missouri River--particularly between
Kansas City, Missouri, and Omaha, Nebraska--Captain Meriwether Lewis is a unique
structure significant to the 20th century development of the Missouri River.
Lewis did dredging and flood control work on the river, an important part of
America's inland waterway since the Civil War, at a time of serious federal
efforts to improve the river's navigation. The importance of the river and this
work to the Nation was reflected in a series of Congressional appropriations
from the late 19th through the early 20th centuries to provide better navigation
and flood control for the Missouri River basin. This work, in large part
accomplished by Captain Meriwether Lewis not only had an impact not only on the
physical, economic, industrial, and commercial environment of the region but on
the entire Nation. For her significant role in this program and her alteration
of an important part of the Nation's system of internal waterways and riverine
navigation, Captain Meriwether Lewis is of national significance. ~ National
Historic Landmark nomination form