The Sunken Steamboat

The story goes that an incident occurred resulting in the loss of a full cargo and a safe containing an undetermined amount of gold and silver coins in 1861. The captain of the steamer that wrecked, John Belt, was the type of man who insisted on finishing what he had started and was on watch when an explosion occurred. He made several attempts to put his boat into the Coon Creek landing, against a strong offshore wind. Right at the entrance to the creek the boilers blew up, wrecking the boat, which sank with the cargo and the ship’s safe which could not be retrieved. The water in Coon Creek was about 50 feet deep during the steamboat era. Today, the creek bed is dry and one can walk where the steamboat went down. The weight of the safe would not have let it drift very far. Chances are good that the safe is still there at the mouth of Coon Creek.