KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - A 19th-century steam engine has been delivered to a Kansas City tourist attraction.
The Kansas City Star (http://bit.ly/1epeCzD ) reports that crews eased the approximately 5,000-pound engine into the Arabia Steamboat Museum on Friday. It was fabricated in 1819 and powered the Missouri Packet until the steamboat sank in the Missouri River in 1820, one year before Missouri became a state.
David Hawley, whose family operates the museum, says he believes the artifact represents the oldest maritime steam engine known to exist in the United States.
The engine was retrieved in 1987 from a field near Arrow Rock, but there wasn't much of the Packet's cargo left. A subsequent excavation of the Arabia from a Kansas farm field yielded a well-preserved cargo that draws thousands to the museum each year.