Homer Smith (Packet/excursion, (1914-1928)

Summary

• BOAT DESCRIPTION: Sternwheel
• BOAT TYPE: Packet/excursion
• BUILT: Jeffersonville, Indiana, by Howard Ship Yards, 1914
• BECAME: Greater Pittsburgh
• FINAL DISPOSITION: Renamed: Greater Pittsburgh, 1928
• OWNERS: Security Steamboat Company (Homer Smith, John Samuel Spencer, C.C. Bowyer and others of the company
• OFFICERS & CREW: 1915: Captain Peter Holloway (master), Captain Henry E. Holloway (pilot until 1928), John Douglass (purser, later master), Jack Smith (son of Homer Smith was purser), Jimmy O'Brien (mate); 1916: Captain W.C. Lepper, Jr. (master)
• RIVERS: Mississippi River; Ohio River; Kanawha River
• OTHER INFORMATION: Ways - 2658; When built, at a cost of $29,619, Homer Smith had a dance floor on the forward end of the main deck with staterooms behind. The texas deck also held staterooms. In 1915, she ran excursions on the lower Ohio River in the Louisville area, and once tried the Louisville-Cincinnati trade. In 1916 she ran a Pittsburgh-New Orleans Mardi Gras trip and then an Easter Cruise, Pittsburgh-New Orleans. She then became a regular excursion boat at Pittsburgh, removing the cabins and staterooms. She wintered in the mouth of the Kanawha and ran tramp excursions in the spring. She ran day trips to Sewickley, Pennsylvania to Walnut Beach, a resort. She was sold to the Pittsburgh Amusement Company in 1928 and renamed Greater Pittsburgh
• PHOTO DESCRIPTION: Aura of lights at sunset