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Volume 1 number 2 |
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Popeye and the Coosa River |
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When you think hear the
Popeye theme, do you think of the Coosa River?
Perhaps you should, for the man who inspired the
popular image of Popeye once piloted a riverboat
on the Coosa River. |
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The steamboat, Annie
M., was built by the River Iron Company, of
Gadsden, Alabama, to push barges to the
furnace. Later she was purchased by the Federal
Government and renamed Leota. She was
used in rebuilding the low lift dams on the
Coosa River, including the lock and dam at
Mayo's Bar. |
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| Captain Sims was master of the
Leota, His son was Tom Sims who became a
cartoonist. Sims began drawing the comic strip "Thimble
Theater" when its creator, Elzie Segar, died in 1938.
The strip's story line was based on the Oyl family that
owned a shipping business. One of the sailors that
worked for Commodore Oyl was a "wise cracking, spinach
eating, chap" named Popeye. Tom Sims took that
character, spun him off and gave him his own strip, thus
creating "Popeye the Sailorman" |
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.In an interview
recorded by Hughes Reynolds in The Coosa River Valley
from De Soto to Hydroelectric Power, Tom Sims says,
"Fantastic as Popeye is, the whole story is based on
facts. As a boy I was raised on the Coosa River. When I
began writing the script for Popeye I put my characters
back on the old Leota that I knew as a boy,
transformed it into a ship and made the Coosa River a
salty sea." |
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The next time
you think of Popeye, remember that he got his start in
Floyd County working on the lock and dam at Mayo’s Bar. |
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| Kenneth Studdard is owner of
Dogwood Books and Antiques |
| 240 Broad Street in historic
downtown Rome |
| (706) 235-2660
dogwoodbooks@comcast.net
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CLOSE WINDOW
TO RETURN |
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TO ROMAN
CHRONICLES |
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