This postcard is from my from my friend Ed Provine’s collection of steamboat postcards. Way’s Packet Directory recorded the following on the HARRY LEE which was the last boat to enter the Lee Line fleet. The cars in the foreground appear to be 1930’s vintage autos.
HARRY LEE: Boat 2541 Way’s Packet Directory page 208. Stern Wheel, steel hull, Packet built St. Louis Mo., 1915, 175.5 x 36 x 6.7. Engines, 16’s – 6. Three boilers set on her backwards; fired from the deck-room. Owned by the Lee Line, Memphis. Ran Memphis-Helena-Friars Point. In January 1921 she was 40 miles up the St. Francis River(Arkansas). She was built at the Phil A. Rohan Boat, Boiler & Tank Works, St. Louis.
Last owned by the Valley Line, Memphis, which sold her June 1924 to Sherburne Transportation Co. She served during WWII at Alexandria La., on the Red River as a barracks for soldiers, and was moved from there to Orange, Tex., used to quarter shipyard workmen and burned May 12, 1942. She was then converted into a showboat at Orange and was still there in 1951. The Valley Line was formed from the Delta Line and several Lee Line boats. This postcard would have dated to sometime after 1942.
Show Boat Harry Lee Texas Floating Amusement Palace
