Locals hope to restore Myra H
The aging riverboat, which last cruised Rome’s rivers 70 years ago, is stored at the Lock & Dam.
Local historian and storyteller Bob Harris is taking the lead in an effort to restore and perpetually preserve the 60foot-long Myra H.
The old paddleboat is all that’s left of those boats that once traveled nature’s original interstate system in the Rome area.
The Myra H was built by Roman Pierce Harris, no relation to Bob, in 1932. He named it for his daughter Myra Harris.
During a flood in the mid-1940s, the boat broke loose from its mooring but Pierce Harris managed to dry dock it on a farm off Collier Road near the Oostanaula River.
He was a caretaker on the farm and used the boat as a retreat, a cabinlike type of getaway.
Pierce Harris’s granddaughter Kyle Vasser recalls spending a lot of time playing on the boat as a child. She remembers the big pilot’s wheel, four bunk beds, a wood burning stove and ice box that made it a great place to place. “I would play on the back, do gymnasticlike things on the paddle wheels, it was an awesome place to hang out,” Vasser said.
Linda Studard, another granddaughter, said she believes her grandfather donated the boat to the Junior Service League in 1983, which moved it to the Chieftains Museum property on Riverside Parkway. Years passed and the boat was moved to Mayo’s Bar Lock & Dam where it remains today.
“She is now in horrible shape. Her forward deck has got huge gaping holes in it. It’s got a window knocked out, a paddle is gone again,” Bob Harris said.
“It was my granddaddy’s heart and soul,” Studard said. “I’d love to see it maintained.”
Bob Harris has been knocking around the idea restoring the boat and moving it to a location adjacent to the River Education Center at Ridge Ferry Park and making part of the river-related nature center at the park.
Harris said the priority is finding a place where the boat can be protected from the weather while it is restored.
His idea is to put major supports into the ground next to the deck by the River Education Center.
The boat could be put on the supports and covered with a roof extended over the deck.
“That’s a big wish,” Harris admitted.
Ben Winkelman, who manages the center, said he has spoken with Harris but nothing has been finalized.
“We’re just basically talking around over a cup of coffee about what ifs,” Winkelman said
He recognizes there is considerable
interest in riverboat history.
Rome City Manager Sammy Rich has also talked with Harris.
“We could preserve it and use it in educational way so I think there are some neat opportunities and ideas that need to be further explored,” Rich said.
“It’s no great luxury ship, I just don’t want to lose her,” Harris said. “The Myra H used to go up and down this river and it’s all that’s left. We have one last example of a river boat that used to go
up and down here all the time.”
Vasser and her stepbrother, Jimmy Lovelace, are supportive of Harris’s efforts to restore the boat and have it put on display in a more appropriate location.
“We have threatened to go and kidnap that thing; it’s hard to watch it go down like it has,” Vasser said.
“It’s everybody’s challenge to make this happen,” Lovelace said. “Right now it’s like watching history fall apart.