The Making of a Hero: 100 years ago, an engineers’ convention turned deadly
But more people would have died without the help of river worker Tom Lee
The M.E. Norman was a relatively new boat when it capsized south of Memphis on the Mississippi River on May 8, 1925. (Courtesy U.S. Army Corps of Engineers)
On the afternoon of May 8, 1925, the steamboat M.E. Norman left Memphis’ riverfront for what was supposed to be a quick trip south on the Mississippi River. It never came back.
The Norman and another boat, the Choctaw, would be taking members of the Memphis Engineers Club and the American Society of Civil Engineers as well as their families out on the river.
It was part of a two-day convention, according to newspaper reports from the time.
By the next morning, the capsizing and sinking of the Norman would become one of the city’s most well-known river stories: Of the steamboat’s 75 passengers and crew members, 32 would be rescued by a veteran river worker named Tom Lee. Another 20 would be rescued by others or swim to safety themselves. Twenty-three people, including a young boy, would perish.
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Bill Dries
Bill Dries covers city and county government and politics. He is a native Memphian and has been a reporter for almost 50 years covering a wide variety of stories from the 1977 death of Elvis Presley and the 1978 police and fire strikes to numerous political campaigns, every county mayor and every Memphis Mayor starting with Wyeth Chandler.
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