It is a wood-and-canvas canoe. Two ladies and a child paddling in Parkersburg, WV in the 1907 Ohio river flood. County courthouse in background. 
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Alan, I think you are right. The website where I found this photo identified them as "ladies." But the stern paddler appears to be wearing pants and suspenders. That was not typical female attire in those days. The bow paddler is definitely wearing a dress, and appears to have a big hat which was typical for that era.
Floods were a regular event then. They still are, but the towns have better protection. The Army Corps of Engineers built a floodwall for Parkersburg in 1950.
My mom grew up about 50 miles downstream from Parkersburg. She recalled the 1937 flood. She had a job in a store across the river in Ohio. During the flood they put up planks, supported by boxes, so people could walk around the store.
The river was and is a major transportation route. It is important economically, but in those days it could be dangerous. People then were more fatalistic and less risk averse than we are today.
Mom's middle brother drowned while swimming in the river at age 15. As best I can gather from her description, the paddle wheels from the steamboats dug a hole in the river bed and created a hydraulic. He got trapped in the hole and could not swim out.
During World War II, my parents worked in a shipyard in Point Pleasant, WV. It was a secure location because there were no German submarines in the Ohio River. The shipyard built 73 ocean-going vessels for the US military, including large tugboats for the Army. The vessels had to travel 1700 miles, all the way down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, to reach salt water at New Orleans.
At the end of the war, six of the Army large tugs were completed but had not been delivered. They were declared surplus and were sold to the USSR (remember the USSR was our ally during the war). The six tugs were lashed together and taken to New Orleans by the sternwheel towboat Robert F. Brandt.
This is a bit of thread drift, but I hope everyone finds it interesting.
Floods were a regular event then. They still are, but the towns have better protection. The Army Corps of Engineers built a floodwall for Parkersburg in 1950.
My mom grew up about 50 miles downstream from Parkersburg. She recalled the 1937 flood. She had a job in a store across the river in Ohio. During the flood they put up planks, supported by boxes, so people could walk around the store.
The river was and is a major transportation route. It is important economically, but in those days it could be dangerous. People then were more fatalistic and less risk averse than we are today.
Mom's middle brother drowned while swimming in the river at age 15. As best I can gather from her description, the paddle wheels from the steamboats dug a hole in the river bed and created a hydraulic. He got trapped in the hole and could not swim out.
During World War II, my parents worked in a shipyard in Point Pleasant, WV. It was a secure location because there were no German submarines in the Ohio River. The shipyard built 73 ocean-going vessels for the US military, including large tugboats for the Army. The vessels had to travel 1700 miles, all the way down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, to reach salt water at New Orleans.
At the end of the war, six of the Army large tugs were completed but had not been delivered. They were declared surplus and were sold to the USSR (remember the USSR was our ally during the war). The six tugs were lashed together and taken to New Orleans by the sternwheel towboat Robert F. Brandt.
This is a bit of thread drift, but I hope everyone finds it interesting.
