{"id":3986,"date":"2026-11-13T20:00:38","date_gmt":"2026-11-14T00:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?p=3986"},"modified":"2026-11-01T11:55:54","modified_gmt":"2026-11-01T15:55:54","slug":"how-did-a-steamboat-end-up-in-a-west-virginia-cornfield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?p=3986","title":{"rendered":"How Did a Steamboat End Up in a West Virginia Cornfield?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In March 1910, floodwaters along the Ohio River carried the grand sternwheel steamboat Virginia far off course, into a flooded cornfield near Willow Grove, West Virginia. What should have been a routine operation to get the boat back into the water turned into months of futile effort that got national attention.<\/p>\n<p>Crowds traveled for miles to see the sight of a massive riverboat stranded hundreds of feet from the Ohio River while crews struggled to free it, in the process making a disturbing discovery.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s another one of the Stories of Appalachia.<\/p>\n<p>Be sure to subscribe so you don\u2019t miss any of our podcasts.\u00a0 You\u2019ll find us on your favorite podcast app or on our YouTube channel.<\/p>\n<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_7281\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-3986-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/74811867\/download.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/74811867\/download.mp3\">https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/74811867\/download.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\" style=\"margin-bottom: 1px !important;\">Podcast: <a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/74811867\/download.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?powerpress_pinw=3986-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/74811867\/download.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"download.mp3\">Download<\/a><\/p><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_subscribe_links\">Subscribe: <a href=\"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?feed=podcast\" class=\"powerpress_link_subscribe powerpress_link_subscribe_rss\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Subscribe via RSS\" rel=\"nofollow\">RSS<\/a><\/p><!--powerpress_player-->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In March 1910, floodwaters along the Ohio River carried the grand sternwheel steamboat Virginia far off course, into a flooded cornfield near Willow Grove, West Virginia. What should have been a routine operation to get the boat back into the water turned into months of futile effort that got national attention. Crowds traveled for miles [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[23,7,31],"tags":[1968,104,1964,1966,1959,1970,1963,1955,1967,1971,1960,1962,1957,1956,1961,1067,1965,1969,778,1958],"class_list":["post-3986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-disasters","category-oddities","category-the-1910s","tag-american-river-lore","tag-appalachian-history","tag-captain-charles-knox","tag-forgotten-appalachia","tag-great-flood-of-1910","tag-historic-floods","tag-jackson-county-west-virginia","tag-ohio-river","tag-ohio-river-flood","tag-ravenswood-west-virginia","tag-river-disasters","tag-riverboat-history","tag-steamboat-in-a-cornfield","tag-steamboat-virginia","tag-sternwheel-steamboat","tag-stories-of-appalachia","tag-strange-appalachian-history","tag-transportation-history","tag-west-virginia-history","tag-willow-grove-west-virginia"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6TX4A-12i","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3986"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4057,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3986\/revisions\/4057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}