Disaster on the Red
 

Russell Cappo Jr explores Shreveport history with the story of The Kentucky

Hey SBL the link did not work for me :confused: Any Hoo "The Kentucky" I believe is just south of Jimmie Davis Bridge about two or three miles. I fish down there and where the lake from the Haven comes into the River they had a coffer dam and a major dig there for a long time. I would like to know more about this boat ? Good post.

Looks like they fixed the link.. I read the story, pretty interesting stuff in there. The Kentucky had a pretty sorted/interesting history, before it went down.

Wow ! that was a very good read. It is in that spot I posted about. I had no idea how big it was and how many people and horses that were on it. They are going to open that ditch you see in the photo so you can drive a boat into that lake. When they tried to do it Matt Locke had to go to court and I believe they had to change locations to a bit further south so the new entrance to the lake would not go over this site. Great thread :clap:

Very interesting story. I hate to put it in such terms, but this disaster was about 10% the size of the Titanic which is still quite large. And it happened, what maybe a mile from LSUS? I used to duck hunt within yards of that wreck as a kid in the mid 70's and didn't even know it was there! I know some land owners in that area and I'll have to point them to this story.

That is a very good post. My family has a long history in this city and on the river. I have some more info, but I want to get my facts straight. A very old cousin of mine ran a riverboat into the bank of the river just below where lock and damn #5 is to block the river from Union boats coming up. An Aunt of mine has done extensive research on this and this time period and we all have stories that we were told as kids. When I get the facts I will post them. Very interesting!:

Please post what you can. I'm getting more and more interested in local history all the time... Especially first hand (or second hand) accounts..

>about 10% the size of the Titanic which is still quite large

The Titanic isn't a very large boat by today's standards. My brother got married this Spring on a cruise ship that was about three times the size of the Titanic, and it wasn't even considered a very large cruise ship.

I was trying to quantify the size of the disaster (in deaths) not the size of the ship. A disaster about 10% the size of the Titanic disaster is still quite a large disaster. sorry about that. It's good to see the archiologists and researchers telling the story in both cases. I think the Kentucky story might make a good movie (starring Kevin Costner) :D

Ahh, I thought you meant the size of the boat.