The Ribbon - Part Seven - River Rats

I never knew if my mother loved the river or just loved my stepfather enough to follow him wherever he took us. Her grandfather, James Wainwright Bristow, had been an engineer on the Steamship City of Cincinnati in the late 1800’s and her father, Benjamin Bristow, had also worked on the steamship at one time. The City of Cincinnati was a packet boat which ferried mail between Louisville and Cincinnati. Until the Newport floodwall was erected after the 1937 flood, my grandparents’ house had a river view and Grandma said that carnivals and circuses that would stop on the river bank across the street from their house. She said you could walk half way out into the river in the early years before they built the locks and dams. My earliest recollection of life on the river was at my grandparents’ house at 111 Washington Avenue in Newport, Kentucky. Sometimes, on a warm summer day with all the windows open, we could hear the Delta Queen coming down river as her calliope’s whistle carried on the breeze. If grandma was in good mood, she would allow us to cross busy Front Street under the watchful eye of an older sibling and climb up on the floodwall and wave as the majestic boat came down river. Grandma’s house was the last residence on the eastern side of Washington Avenue before the floodwall. Next door was a refinishing company and a bar on the corner. As young children we could never cross the floodwall alone but as we grew older and actually lived on the other side, Grandma’s house was just a short distance on the city side of the wall.

We were moved away from the river during much of my teen years. We lived with my grandparents or rented an apartment from my aunt although we would visit Lou on the boats where he was working. On weekends Mom and I would drive down to the Kentucky or Tennessee Rivers to pick Lou up for the weekend or just to hang around.

The first phase of the Big Mac Bridge was building the piers. Lou worked the tow boats that took the cranes, equipment and crew out to the piers.

In the early 70’s, the Daniel Beard Bridge was being built to link Newport and Cincinnati. Lou went to work for the bridge company as their towboat captain and our family once again moved to the riverfront on the Newport side.



Lou holding Chandra on their front deck which overlooked the bridge construction site. Their trailer was just east of the Big Mac Bridge

Mom and Lou bought another two bedroom mobile home and placed it on the east side of the construction site. Some of the construction workers on the site helped Lou put up a wooden deck on the river side of the trailer overlooking the riverfront. When he wasn’t piloting the boat from the shore to the piers, Lou would sit on the deck and read, drinking endless cups of coffee. The job was lucrative and mother finally had the opportunity not to work which came in handy when I needed a baby sitter for my first daughter.

My stepfather was friends with Griff Carlisle of Greater Cincinnati Marine and was proud to pilot Griff’s first boat, the Beverly Wayne. Griff founded his towing company in 1966 and the story goes that he needed a towboat and crane flat to move one of his cranes to a job on the Ohio River. He owned Carlisle Construction and was one of the largest crane companies in the U.S. He called a local marine operator and was told the equipment would be there the following Monday but when it hadn’t arrived in more than five days after that, Griff went to Tucker Marine Builders in Cincinnati and had a boat built. He named the boat the Beverly Wayne after his children. His son Wayne took over running the Carlisle Companies, and Griff devoted his time to towboats and the river, working 15 to 17 hours each day. He never missed a day’s work until a few days before his death in 2000.

A towboat push

Griff Carlisle was a sponser for a festival of riverboats held between his dock in Kentucky and Fernbank Park in Saylor Park, Ohio. On a summer day in 1988, my daughters and I rode on one of his boats during the festival. There were towboat races, shoving contests and in the evening there was a barge filled with fireworks. We thought it would be lots of fun to be on a fireworks barge and came out on the deck as the evening grew dark. As soon as the fuses were lit, we girls would ooh and ahh and then race into the wheelhouse as the rockets fell around us. We laughed as we ran, hoping to avoid catching our hair on fire and promising that once was enough for being this close to the action!