Date of Visit: December 22, 2012<\/p>\n
This is Mr. Toad. \u00a0He was a towboat parked along the Illinois River near the town of Chillicothe, Illinois. \u00a0He was built by the Alexander Shipyards of New Orleans in 1951. \u00a0His original named was “Coal King” but he also went by “A.V. Criss,” “Ethel Marie” and “Eva Mae Hamm”. \u00a0I like Mr. Toad the best.<\/p>\n
I visited him in December of 2012. \u00a0We climbed aboard and explored the entire boat, but there really wasn’t much to photograph inside. \u00a0But I liked him. \u00a0I thought it would be awfully cosy to live aboard a boat like Mr. Toad.<\/p>\n
But Mr. Toad had been sitting there out of service for quite awhile. \u00a0It was obvious that it would take a lot of work to fix him up, and we weren’t surprised when we learned a few months later that he was going to be scrapped.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, July 27, 2013, some salvage workers were cutting him up for scrap when he caught on fire<\/a>. \u00a0It was a sad way for such a faithful ship to go out. \u00a0I’ll miss you, Mr. Toad.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Date of Visit: December 22, 2012 This is Mr. Toad. \u00a0He was a towboat parked along the Illinois River near the town of Chillicothe, Illinois. \u00a0He was built by the Alexander Shipyards of New Orleans in 1951. \u00a0His original named was “Coal King” but he also went by “A.V. Criss,” “Ethel Marie” and “Eva Mae …<\/p>\n