Steamboat Pat Cleburne

The Steamboat Pat Cleburne was perhaps the largest steamboat ever to ply the Arkansas River. The steamboat was named after Helena, Arkansas, pharmacist Patrick Ronayne Cleburne, a Confederate Army major general known as the "Stonewall of the West."

The Pat Cleburne, constructed in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1870 by Captain John D. Adams, was a sidewheeler originally built for use on the White River of Arkansas. The boat, 192 1/4 feet long and 33 feet wide, could accommodate 124 passengers or two thousand bales of cotton. The Pat Cleburne moved from the White to the Arkansas River in 1871, and in that year was judged at the Women's Episcopal Fair in Little Rock the most popular steamboat on either river. The boat returned to service on the White River in 1872 before its sale to the Lee Line in 1873. The Pat Cleburne burned beyond repair in a boiler explosion on May, 17, 1876. Fourteen people were killed in the explosion, including the captain Dick Fowler.

References

• Duane Huddleston, et al., Steamboats and Ferries on the White River: A Heritage Revisited (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1998), 75-76.