Bob Priddy was on a mission to save a museum.
If you haven’t heard of Priddy, you might recognize his voice. For , he covered the Missouri Legislature for , distributing his broadcasts to radio stations in small towns across the state. When he retired, he turned his focus to preserving the state he loves, from the art in the Capitol to a steamship museum in Kansas City.
That’s where this journey starts, where the — a must-see place, Priddy tells me — is seeking a larger facility, perhaps elsewhere in Missouri. The museum holds parts of a 19th century steamship — the Arabia — and much of its cargo, preserved in the mud after it sank. It’s a good story. I’ll let Priddy tell it:
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“The steamboat Arabia left ºüÀêÊÓƵ in September 1856 loaded with cargo bound for about 16 communities and outposts upstream,†he said. “About 10 miles north of Kansas City it hit a 10-foot-long walnut submerged log and sank within 30 minutes. The only casualty was a mule that was too spooked for anybody to get close enough to untie it. The Arabia sank into the soft mud of the Missouri River and was so completely covered within hours that recovery of the cargo was impossible.â€
In the late 1980s, David Hawley, of Independence, went searching for the Arabia, found it and excavated what he could:
“Using old maps and news accounts, they determined the resting place was now about 1,000 feet from the river in a Kansas cornfield. After extensive searches with a magnetometer, they pinpointed the location of the boat, dug down about 50 feet in the winter of 1988-89 and recovered 200 tons of cargo, the boilers and the steam engines, one paddlewheel and a section of the aft of the boat that includes the rudder,†Priddy says.
“The cargo, sealed off from light and air, was perfectly preserved, even the canned fruit and vegetables which were tasted and remained edible. Champagne bubbled and tasted like Champagne. French perfume was still perfume and has been analyzed and reproduced for sale in the souvenir shop. Tobacco still smelled like tobacco. Fabrics were cleaned and freeze-dried and are as new today as the day they were put on the boat.â€
Priddy loves Missouri history. That’s one reason why he was invited in March 2018 to the museum in Kansas City. Hawley and other investors now have their sights set on recovering an even older steamship that sunk — the Malta — and adding it to the museum. But they need a larger site and more funding. The city of Marshall — home of — and surrounding counties, have stepped up and are in early planning stages to build the new in the middle of the state.
It’s a good plan, Priddy says, and it sparked an idea: Why not go to the casinos for funding? After all, the industry was built on the backs of the steamboat history, with the first casinos having to be “boats in moats†connected to one of Missouri’s rivers. The industry, Priddy later told a House committee “brushed us off.â€
He was speaking to a House committee because the gaming industry brush-off sent Priddy into reporter mode, researching the history of casinos and funding in Missouri. What he found is that the industry — which is supposed to help fund education in the state — hasn’t changed its admissions fees since 1994 and has never quite fulfilled the promise of making sure the state’s schools are well-funded. In fact, Missouri has the lowest starting teacher pay in the nation. Its state aid for public schools isn’t much better.
The effort to save the museums turned Priddy into a lobbyist. Now he is one of the only people in the Capitol standing against a sports wagering bill steaming toward the legislative finish line. His problem isn’t with betting on a ballgame — it’s that the casinos and the sports teams pushing the bill are trying to get away with both an artificially low tax on sports wagers — 8% — while also effectively cutting the current 21% tax on casino betting that is supposed to benefit the state’s public schoolchildren.
“It seems to me that the casinos want you to be so focused on wagering on sports that you don’t think about how the industry is manipulating the Legislature into undermining the state’s commitment to education that it has maintained since those first casinos went on line on May 27, 1994,†Priddy told House members.
They didn’t agree with him. But Priddy found a sympathetic ear in state Sen. Denny Hoskins, R-Warrensburg. He represents the Marshall Junction area that could end up hosting the new steamboat museum, if it can find the funding. Hoskins has slowed the sports wagering bill in the Senate, demanding a higher tax to bring more money to the residents of the state. Several states have sports betting taxes significantly higher than Missouri is contemplating, both Priddy and Hoskins have pointed out, and they are still showing massive growth in gaming profits while generating more money for their residents.
Priddy covered the Legislature long enough to know he has little chance of winning this battle. The casinos and sports teams have nearly always gotten lawmakers to do their bidding, never mind the schoolchildren and veterans — or steamship museums — who could use a boost. But he’s going to keep fighting until they sink him.
“I’m prepared to be run over by the steamroller,†he told lawmakers. “But somebody has to stand in front of them or the steamrollers will always win.â€