National Rivers Hall of Fame 2024 Ballot Survey

General T.Q. Ashburn (1874-1941)

Thomas Quinn Ashburn was born in Batavia, Ohio in 1874. He entered the US Military Academy at West Point as a Cadet from Ohio in 1892 and graduated in 1897.

He then joined the 25th Infantry at Fort Missoula, Montana before transferring to the artillery. In 1899, he accepted a captain’s commission in the 33rd US Volunteer Infantry and continued his military service by serving in the Philippines, Cuba and France.

While in the Army, Ashburn received over 16 service medals and decorations, and has the distinction of being the only man in US history every promoted to General Officer twice by an Act of Congress in recognition of his public services. The promotions by the Act of Congress were due to his services in development of the inland waterways transportation.

In a time where no other officers would consider it, Ashburn chose the field of inland waterways development. Following a highly successful army career, wherein Ashburn occupied every rank from Cadet to Major General, he became the Chief of the Inland and Coastwise Waterways Service. He was founder, President, and Chairman of the Board of the Inland Waterways Corporation. He served as Chairman of the Board from 1924 to 1938, when he retired from active duty in the military.

Ashburn fought for the “waterways” cause, wholeheartedly. He worked for over a decade to see transportation in inland streams firmly established as an economic form of haulage. Never did his principles sway.

John Boepple (1854-1912)

In the 1880s, John Boepple was making buttons in Hamburg, Germany, utilizing animal horn and hooves, bone, and seashells. He came to the United States in 1887 with his foot-powered turning equipment, looking to use fresh water mussels from the Mississippi River to make pearl buttons.

Boepple worked as a farm hand in Columbus, Iowa, but wanted to ship his shell-cutting machine to Muscatine, Iowa, and he convinced a new partner, William Molis, to advance $15 to move his machinery. In 1891, Boepple brought A. I. Kerr into the partnership and had him develop an improvement to Boepple's shell-cutter.

Boepple’s factory cut, polished, and sold pearl buttons as fast as the fishers could bring in the shells. Soon button factories opened from St. Paul, Minnesota to New Orleans, Louisiana, but Muscatine was known as the “Button Capital of the World.”

By 1897 three hundred people were fishing for mussels between Burlington and Clinton. When mussels became sparse on the Upper Mississippi, clam fishers found untouched beds in the Arkansas, Ohio and Tennessee Rivers.

Boepple was considered an authority on pearl button manufacturing and testified before the House of Representative's Ways and Means Committee, supporting the Dingley Bill which protected American pearl button manufacturers.

Capt. Clarke C. "Doc" Hawley (1935-2022)

Captain Clarke C. "Doc" Hawley was the first master of the excursion steamer Natchez in New Orleans. During the course of his long river career, Captain Hawley had not only served as master of three of the four remaining Mississippi River System steamboats, but he had done much to promote river history. He served as a modern day steamboating public relations man and goodwill ambassador.

Captain Hawley spent his entire career working with passengers and crew on excursion and tourist steamboats. His steamboating days began on the tramping excursion boat Avalon. He moved to the Delta Queen, then to the excursion boat Belle of Louisville, and finally to the steamer Natchez. He has hosted US presidents, government officials, royalty, entertainment and sports stars, river buffs, and countless media people.

"Doc" Hawley's generosity in sharing steamboat artifacts and knowledge with his river friends was boundless. He graciously gave his time to answer historical queries and to relate some of his many legendary river tales. Capt. Hawley was co-author with Capt. Alan Bates of “Moonlight at 8:30-The Excursion Boat Story.” His skill at the calliope keyboard earned him the title “Pied Piper of the French Quarter.” He is one of the founders of the National Rivers Hall of Fame.

It has been said that the real mark of a riverman is the number of people he has trained to carry on his work. During his lifetime, Captain Hawley has trained over 20 people who now hold captain's licenses on the rivers and continue to carry on the steamboat tradition.

W.C. Handy (1873-1958)

William Christopher (W.C.) Handy was born in Florence, Alabama to former slaves on November 16, 1873. His father was a preacher, and while W.C. took to music as a child, his father discouraged it. W.C. used money he earned from making soap and picking nuts and berries to buy a guitar, but “his father made him return it for a refund and buy a dictionary,” said David Guion. Despite his father’s objections, Handy became a musician.

In 1903, Handy went to conduct a band in Clarksdale, Mississippi, called the Knights of Pythias. That year, while waiting for a train at the Tutwiler depot, about 16 miles southeast of Clarksdale, Handy witnessed an African American man playing a guitar and using a knife for his slide. “His face,” Handy wrote, in his 1941 autobiography, “had on it the sadness of the ages...." He called it “the weirdest music [he] had ever heard.”

As the Knights of Pythias played throughout the Delta, Handy kept hearing the blues and added to the band’s music.

Handy made the Blues popular through “sheet music and the vaudeville stage prior to the era of blues recordings from 1920.” A composer, trumpet player, and music producer, Handy played a pivotal role in promoting the blues. His Memphis Blues, published in 1912, was “a game-changer” according to Gordon. And Robin Banerji, of the BBC, declares that the Memphis Blues “would take the US by storm . . .” and “launched the blues as a mass entertainment genre that would transform popular music worldwide.”

In 1914, Handy published the St. Louis Blues, his most popular song, and in 1916, he wrote the Beale Street Blues, elevating the street’s popularity.

National Rivers Hall of Fame 2024 Ballot

Question Title

* 1. NRHOF 2024 Inductee Nominees (Please choose two)