by I am not particularly interested in boats, so I would have skipped this attraction based on its name alone, but Doug said he was very interested in visiting, so we went.
Well, it was amazing, and I had to admit I was wr… wr… wr… not correct.
The Arabia was a steamboat that sank in the Missouri River in 1856. It was carrying passengers with their luggage, and also fully loaded with cargo destined for frontier towns. The ship struck a tree snag that pierced its hull, and the Arabia sank in just minutes. Luckily, all 150 passengers were saved, but the 220 tons of cargo went to the bottom of the river with the boat.
Over the years, the river’s path shifted considerably, and the location of the boat was lost. Due to a chance conversation with a local “treasure-hunter” in Missouri, a group of men — a father and his two adult sons, and two additional friends — decided almost on a whim to start adventuring in order to uncover lost treasures. After one successful find, they set their sites on a bigger challenge — finding the Arabia.
The searchers came to believe the Arabia was buried in dozens of feet of muck under an active farm. They reached out to the farmer, who gave his blessing on their digging up his farm — so long as they did it on the off-season. This gave them just a few months to find the boat, excavate it, retrieve what they could, and then put everything back in place for farming season.
They began to dig over the winter of 1988-89. And dig. And dig. But 45-feet down, eureka!
What a haul it was! They recovered thousands of artifacts: shoes, hats, and clothing; building and household supplies; foods (still edible!); and much more!
Most of the items were brand-new merchandise from around the world, all heading to general stores on the frontier. It’s one of the largest (if not the largest) collections of pre-Civil War artifacts in the world.
The cargo was remarkably well-preserved, thanks to be being protected from light and oxygen while buried deep under a cornfield.
The boat’s resting place is a full half-mile away from the present channel of the Missouri River.
The group originally intended to sell whatever they recovered, but after examining their loot, they decided to share it with the world, instead. Hence, the Arabia Steamboat Museum in Kansas City, Missouri, opened in 1991.
Restoration and preservation of recovered items is still ongoing today, and is anticipated to last another decade at least. Restorers are at work in the museum and often interact with visitors.
