Iron Mountain

The Iron Mountain was a stern-wheeler that plied the Mississippi River for ten years until sinking in 1882. Built in 1872 on the Ohio River at Pittsburgh, the boat was long and had a beam. The ship ran aground and sank in 1882. However, a common legend claims that it mysteriously disappeared. Sinking The Iron Mountain sailed from Vicksburg on March 25, 1882, and hit an obstruction at Stumpy Point, near Island 102, which holed her hull and sank her. The crew scrambled onto one of the barges and escaped. Ellen Anderson, a chambermaid/ship stewardess, was caught below decks and killed. Her body was recovered the next day with some wreckage, but there was no sign of the ship. Further wreckage was found on June 30, several miles from where the boat was lost. The sinking of the ship was reported locally, with articles appearing in the March 27 edition of the Vicksburg Daily Commercial, and the March 28 issue of the Daily Memphis Avalanche. The ship was not found until later, having apparently been refloated by flood waters and carried through a break in a levee, and grounded in a cotton field at Omega Landing, near Tallulah, Louisiana. Legend