Steamboats on the Missouri River - History
Fort Benton, Montana served as the innermost port for shipping and human transportation thanks to the arrival and successful voyages of steamboats. The first steamboat made the journey in 1819. This history is rich, vast and, at times, hard to even imagine. The river remains largely unchanged since this time period (and before), and if you have had the privilege of floating the river, either by canoe, kayak or raft, you will find it absolutely puzzling how those behemoth vessels managed to make their way up the river and back to St. Louis, especially considering the massive amount of cargo and people they brought.
This page serves as a collection of gathered steamboat history and reference point for additional research and learning if you are interested. We will regularly be adding to this page as we collect more!
We highly recommend the following sources (and will add more):
Packets to Paradise: Steamboating to Fort Benton, by Jack G. Lepley
Montana’s Upper Missouri River National Monument and Wild and Scenic River, by Glenn Monahan. Find out more and purchase here.
“When the first steamboat entered the Missouri in 1819, it opened a colorful history of wild adventures and hazardous trips, led by a group of pilots who were unsurpassed in river navigation anywhere in steamboat lore.”
The following research gathering is thanks to our guide and dear friend Norm Miller. His love and passion for paddling and everything Missouri River is unrivaled and revered. We are beyond thankful to have Norm in our lives.
Norm discovered this newspaper ad in an old Bismarck newspaper from April 1877 for the Ft. Benton Steamboat Company etc. He learned where we get the name of "McGarry Barr," one of the sites we often stop at or stay overnight on our trips. It is at river mile 103.3, about 14 miles downriver from Judith Landing. It is a small site appropriate for one to two groups, but it also boasts a Corps of Discovery campsite: May 27, 1805. There is a permanent ground marker designating the site just downriver from the metal fire ring.
The short article below about the Sioux Indians burning the prairie between Ft. Benton and Ft Claggett is interesting. Ft. Clagget was located on river right just before where the Judith River empties into the Missouri. This article was featured in the same section advertising and giving information on steamboat travel.
The passenger manifest is interesting and the massive about of freight they are carrying is something else. Note they lost one passenger!
The ad for the "Coulson Line" of reliable steamboats is wildly interesting. There were many famous streamboats in that line. Note the one called the "WESTERN". Norm and his partner, Kris, paddled and saw the wreck of the Western near Yankton during the summer of 2022. They reported that there was obviously not much left of it, but he did include a couple of photos here below.
These old newspaper articles from the 1870s were in the old Ft Benton newspaper. A lot of those streamboats would make runs to Cow Island (river mile 126.5) and Back to Ft. Benton because the other streamboats were too big to make it further up the river and would offload tons of freight near Cow Island.
