The new steamboat built for Messrs Ward & Company of Matagorda, Texas launched on July 21st 1845 and was intended for the navigation of the Colorado river above the raft. She was 110 feet at the keel, 24 feet at the beam and calculated to carry 600 bales of cotton in three feet of water with a draft of only five inches. Ward named the boat after his sister Kate and on March 8, 1846 the boat made it from La Grange, Texas to Austin. Come visit the journeys of the Kate Ward and relive the steamboat era of the rivers.
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