The main boats were steam-driven paddle-wheeler steamboats, similar in form to the type now used in Pittsburgh for river excursions, but without the fancy decks for passengers. These workhorses were large and powerful, brightly painted and trimmed. As kids, we soon got to recognize them by name, depending on their size, color and type of the paddle wheel. Some great paddle-wheelers were named the Sailor, Duquesne, Titan and the Monongahela.
Occasionally the boats would be pushing an oil barge, but usually the tow would be six coal barges hauling coal from mines south of Pittsburgh to U.S. Steel's giant coke works at Clairton and to other steel mills along the Monongahela Valley. Once unloaded by giant buckets on cranes, they would return south on the river to repeat the cycle.
Although it was called a tow, the steam boats didn't tow them, but pushed them. The barges were about 175 feet long and 26 feet wide and each held 900 tons of coal, crowned in the middle so it was higher than the top of the barge. They were lashed together with large ropes, in two rows of three, and pushed by the steamboat. When loaded, they showed about 2 1/2' of barge above water. Going back empty, about 8' of the barge rode above the water level.
The channel of the Mon River is fairly narrow so the boat captain had to know every bend in the river, and every landmark along shore to safely steer this football field length of barges which couldn't be turned or stopped very quickly. The fall season brought on thick fog which increased the difficulty of following the channel and missing bridge abutments. Before radar, much later, the boats used their horns in the fog and their powerful spotlights which could move form side to side.
In the summer, the paddle wheel produced a row of waves reaching to the shore which the swimmers enjoyed. The more daring swimmers would swim out toward the approaching barges and try to swim into the wavy wake behind the paddle wheel.
Another daring thing to do was to row out close to the boat and barges in a wooden skiff, or rowboat, and as the paddlewheel moved alongside the skiff, start rowing directly into its wake as fast of possible so as to be able to ride the waves. Because of the force of the water being pushed back by the wheel, it was difficult to get in before the fourth or fifth wave. Anyone who made it into the second or third usually had bragging rights for the summer.
Young men and older boys would sometimes swim close to the loaded barges and reach up and pull themselves up onto the top of the barge for a short ride. The captain would soon give them a couple of short blasts from the boat's powerful whistle. If that didn't get them off, a deckhand would soon start walking down the barge. Usually, the more daring "hitchhikers" would wait until the deckhand had walked the length of a barge or two and was approaching them before dropping back into the water.
I recall one tragic rowboat accident during the late-thirties. One young man (the older brother of Henry Koval, a close friend of mine) and his fiancee were out in the evening for a ride in his rowboat. He must have misjudged and rowed too close to the on-coming barges. The lead barge caught the front of his rowboat and pulled the skiff with them under it. Crews dragged the river throughout the night and their bodies were recovered the next morning.
From our yard on the hill, the Monongahela River was always in view, and it dominated the valley. It originates deep in West Virginia and flows north to Pittsburgh where it joins the Allegheny to form the Ohio River. The water level of the river was controlled by dams and locks every six to ten miles, which maintained water deep enough for the river traffic, and was about 500 feet wide at the normal river pool.
View from the porch of our house.
When passing another boat going the other way, the loaded boat (which had barges farther below water) had the right of the channel and the boat with empty barges moved closer to shore and usually stirred up the bottom sediments which colored the water in their wake a muddy brown.