Henry Miller Shreve (October 21, 1785 – March 6, 1851) was the American inventor and steamboat captain who opened the Mississippi, Ohio and Red rivers to steamboat navigation. Shreveport, Louisiana, is named in his honor.
Shreve was also instrumental in breaking the Fulton-Livingston monopoly on steamboat traffic on the lower Mississippi. He was the first riverboat captain to travel the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans and back, as well as the first to bring a keelboat from the Ohio River up the Mississippi to the Fever River in Illinois. Shreve also made significant improvements to the steamboat and the steam engine, such as separate boilers to power side paddlewheels independently, horizontal cylinders, and multiple decks to allow for passengers and entertainment.
Read more about Henry Miller Shreve: Early Life, The Enterprise, The Washington, Clearing The Great Raft, Later Life
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“I have never been able to look upon America as young and vital but rather as prematurely old, as a fruit which rotted before it had a chance to ripen.”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)
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—Vassar Miller (b. 1924)