RECOLLECTIONS OF A FAMILY WHO LIVED THEIR LIVES AS SHOWBOAT ENTERTAINERS ON AMERICAN RIVERS.

Children of the Ol’ Man River, which was first published in 1936, tells the colorful and witty life story of the Bryants, a poor family who found fortune aboard the Mississippi steamboat they built and performed on at the beginning of this century. In addition to chronicling his own family’s history, Bryant provides an excellent introduction to the importance and history of river travel and entertainment on the most famous of American rivers.

For many years, colorful showboats traveled the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and their tributaries, bringing entertainment to eager audiences in communities large and small.

Huntington was a regular stop for the showboats, which made their arrival known by the musical strains of a powerful steam calliope, audible for miles around. Hearing the music, people would make a beeline for the 10th Street river landing to have a look at the boat and see what time the show would start.

Some of the boats were lavish floating palaces, while others were far from grand. Some traveled only for a summer season or two, others for years.

Billy Bryant’s Showboat plied the inland waterways of the Ohio River watershed from before the First World War until 1942, bringing a blend of melodrama and vaudeville, laughter and therapeutic tears, into the lives of isolated people in rural communities along the way.