The life of Samuel Clements (1835-1910) paralleled the golden age of the Mississippi steamboats. Like most people who lived near a river port, young Sam eagerly welcomed to the arrival of a steamboat. He admired steamboat captains so much that he became a cubpilot in 1857. The Civil War ended Sam's career as a captain - he went west to become a miner and then a reporter. The war changed steamboats too, as did the increasing need for speed, which lead to disasters like the sinking of the Sultana, in which more people died than on the Titanic.
As Sam became Mark Twain, the steamboats became river palaces in their last glory days. Twain's travels took him far from the Mississippi, but he wrote about it and his adventures there. By the time he died, the steamboats were a dying breed.
