Which is "better"?

What you see above are two versions of the same photo. That's the mv. Linda Reed seen after it had passed under the East End bridge at Huntington, W.Va., Thursday evening. One person in my household likes the full-frame shot. One person likes the close-in crop. This person asked me to put both versions on the blog and ask people which they prefer.

So here they are.

From the archives 5: Four boats and a powerhouse

In this next-to-last installment of the archive photos from the 1970s and 1980s, I thought I’d run the final towboat photos in the group.

First is this boat. The name of the boat is not clear in the original print, but I think it’s the Bayou Black of Oil Transport Co. This was taken in  late summer or early fall of 1984, I think. This may have been the only time I saw this boat on the Ohio River in the 1980s. I’m pretty sure this is from the only set photos of it that I have, at least under this name and paint scheme.

Second is one of my favorites, the mv. Omar of Ohio River Co. This was taken right above the old locks at the Gallipolis Locks and Dam, and I think it was taken at the cells that the boats used to help navigate the bend as they approached from upriver. I have no idea what the Omar was doing here, as it is facing upriver.

 

And this is the Capt. Charles H. Stone of G&C Towing Co. Captain Stone gave me some good interviews when I was a reporter. If memory serves, he had a historic slide show that, he said, shows a sequence of the only known photos of a steamboat exploding.

 Remember M/G Transport Services? Here’s the William F. Plettner as seen on a dreary October day in October 1983, I think.

 Finally, this is the powerhouse of the old Lock and Dam 26, which was replaced by the Gallipolis locks in 1937 as part of a program to improve navigation on the Kanawha River.  Yes, the Kanawha.

 As the story goes, Dam 26 raised its wickets and its pool one day, and the next morning people discovered that the dam had bowed and had to be rebuilt.

 The powerhouse stood for years after Lock and Dam 26 was demolished and was particularly visible from the Ohio side. It was demolished when the new locks were built. I can’t say exactly when it was removed, but I have a box of slides that I shot from sunup to evening on June 26, 1988, and it was still there.

 

(Reminder: All photos on this blog, except as otherwise noted, are copyrighted by me, Jim Ross, and are not to be downloaded, used or reproduced without my written permission.)