Steamboat Enterprise/Boatbuilding Center

SIDE 1 (Steamboat Enterprise): Fourth steamboat built in Western Pennsylvania, Bridgeport, 1814. Engine design by Daniel French. Capt. Henry M. Shreve, commanding. Steamed to New Orleans, Fall, 1814 and returned June 1815. First steamboat to ascend the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. SIDE 2 (Boatbuilding Center): Flatboats and keelboats built here for trade and downriver migration, 1780-1820. From 1825-1903 a leading steamboat construction center. Over 700 steamboats were built in Bridgeport and West Brownsville and completed in Brownsville. (Dedicated: Saturday, August 27, 1994)