Sprague (towboat)
''Sprague'', built at Dubuque, Iowa's ''Iowa Iron Works'' in 1901 by Captain Peter Sprague for the Monongahela River Consolidated Coal and Coke Company, was the world's largest steam powered sternwheeler towboat. She was nicknamed ''Big Mama'', and was capable of pushing 56 coal barges at once. In 1907, ''Sprague'' set a world's all-time record for towing: 60 barges of coal, weighing 67,307 tons, covering an area of acres, and measuring by . She was decommissioned as a towboat in 1948. Legacy After decommissioning, the ''Sprague'' became a museum on the Vicksburg, Mississippi, waterfront, and restoration was initiated in 1972 using funds appropriated by the Mississippi Legislature. For many years the long-running melodrama ''Gold in the Hills'' was performed on the towboat. Restoration had begun, but on April 15, 1974, the upper decks of the towboat burned while moored at Vicksburg. In 1975, the ''Sprague'' was moved to dry dock north of Vicksburg while negotiations for restor ...
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