Sultana disaster: Arkansas city weighs building permanent museum

On April 27,1865 the Steamboat Sultana, some 7 miles North of Memphis, Tennessee, carrying 2,300 just released Union prisoners of war, plus crew and civilian passengers, exploded and sank. Some 1,700 people died. Almost equal to the amount of Union Troops killed at Shiloh 1,758.
It was the worst maritime disaster in U.S. history, more costly than even the April 14, 1912 Sinking of the Titanic, when 1,517 people were lost. But because the Sultana went down when it did, the disaster was not well covered in the newspapers or magazines, and was soon forgotten. It is scarcely remembered today.

Expedition Journal..National Geographic...
 
Wish I could join you guys,would love to know more as I have looked at a lot of things about it.
Our primary destination that day is Corinth by nightfall. We will be passing through Memphis and Marion,Arkansas is just across the river about 12 miles northwest of Memphis.
 
Is there a Kickstarter project to get funding for this?

Also, I hate to say this, since I live in a small town myself, and I know how badly Marion, if it's like every other small town, could really use the influx of tourist dollars... but if the prime object is to get maximum number of tourists, would it help to build a new museum in Memphis itself? I've never been to Memphis, so I don't have a good feel for the layout. I see from the map that Marion is less than 15 miles from Memphis, seems like people ought not to have too much trouble getting there! So maybe all that's needed is better media/publicity.
 
People only think of titanic when it comes to marine disasters.a proper museum to inform the people of these United States about the real disaster would be a good idea for a proper museum.it would definetly be on my list of places to see.
And people seem to have an endless fascination with the Titanic. Seems like there's a hook there, somewhere....
 
Is there a Kickstarter project to get funding for this?

Also, I hate to say this, since I live in a small town myself, and I know how badly Marion, if it's like every other small town, could really use the influx of tourist dollars... but if the prime object is to get maximum number of tourists, would it help to build a new museum in Memphis itself? I've never been to Memphis, so I don't have a good feel for the layout. I see from the map that Marion is less than 15 miles from Memphis, seems like people ought not to have too much trouble getting there! So maybe all that's needed is better media/publicity.
Marion sits at the convergence of I-40 and I-55 and borders West Memphis, and the huge demarcation of the Mississippi River and Memphis on the other side. You're right. It would take some major advertizing signage. You'd need to really grab their attention because everyone travelling is just tryin' to get across the river.
 
Couple of thoughts.

Some museums that deal with tragedy and disaster do a thing with visitors, when they go in they're given an identity card or ticket with the profile of some historical person, and there are keys in the museum to explain those persons' stories along the way. Then, and the very end, they learn what the fate of "their" historical person was. The first museum I heard of doing this was the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, but I've seen it done elsewhere (with varying degrees of effectiveness) since then.

The other thought is that, one of my relative who spent the last 18 months of the war in the pen at Rock Island might easily have been in the same boat, so to speak. He was traveling in the opposite direction, down the Mississippi to New Orleans, and then by steamboat to Texas. As much as I've read about the Sultana disaster over the years, I never thought about it from that angle.
 
I recall seeing the Sultana Memorial in Elmwood Cemetery, while visiting Memphis a few years ago, such a truly sad story, indeed.

sultana.jpg
 
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