Robert Gudmestad

So the first level was the deck.

And you had deck passengers on the deck.

And you also had the engine and the boilers on the deck.

And then above that was another level.

It was called the boiler deck because its floor was above the boilers.

And that was where cabin passengers were.

And so these people are paying a lot more money to travel on steamboats.

And then above that,

You had the hurricane deck because there was an ever-present breeze on it.

And that was sometimes for storage and sometimes for crew.

Above that even was the Texas deck.

It was called the Texas deck because it was added on in the 1840s like Texas was added on to the United States.

Yeah.

The crew mainly stayed on the Texas deck, and above that was the pilot house.

And the pilot house could be 40 feet above the main deck.

So it's a high structure, if you will.

Mark Twain described it as a wedding cake without all the complications because of all the layers.

So your passengers are segregated.

They're not segregated by race for the most part.

They're segregated by class.