New to me canoe

[czahnle]

A friend of mine is giving me what appears to be an Arrowhead canoe. They grew up in Maine with OT canoes and his family had owned, used, and restored several. Work sent the family to St. Louis at some point and that is where this one was procured. It was one last canoe he was gong to get to, but never did. My friend asked if I wanted it and I said yes.
At some point in the near future we will make the trip to MO to bring the canoe back to IL. In the meantime he will try to get the the serial numbers and such so we can chase it down.

I have a few pics I can share at this time. I look forward to putting the work in to bringing it back to life and get it back on the water. The pictures are not the greatest and I will supply more once I can get near it.

 

[Norm Hein]

Welcome. Looks like a great project

 

[czahnle]

Good morning, The donor of the canoe sent me a few pics of the stems to help identify the year it was possibly built. stems say 3209 17.

 

[mccloud]

The photo tells me the canoe is 17 feet long, but not much else. WE like photos! Post shots that show the stem profile, deck, seats, thwarts - anything that provides clues to the manufacturer. Is there a metal tag or a decal, even one not entirely readable? A builders in the midwest were Racine, Thompson and Meramec, but there were others. Tom McCloud

 

[czahnle]

The other pics I have currently are the ones at the top of the post as .jpg attachments.

 

[Michael Grace]

Wally Hauck is a resident expert on St. Louis canoes. See the thread here for more information from Wally that could help your search for data:

http://wcha.org/forums/index.php?threads/thank-you.7802/#post-41861

Also you'll find great detail in the April 2008 issue of Wooden Canoe (issue #146). You can get this from the WCHA online store: http://wcha.org/store/back-issues

Hope this helps,
Michael

 

[MGC]

There is enough there to suggest that it is a St. Louis Boat and Canoe craft. There are quite a few clues including the arrowhead decks, the carry thwarts, and half rib construction etc... the fact that it's located out that a way lines up pretty well with that... what is unique about yours is that it is a sponson canoe.
There are some build records for the canoes produced by SLBC. As noted by Michael, Wally Hauck has been very helpful dating some of this builder boats. As a point of reference he identified a canoe with a 22 hundred SN as having been built in the mid-1940's.
Here on this sites landing page you can navigate to a section about manufacturers. Here is a link to SLBC from that page.
www.wcha.org/content/st-louis-meramec-canoe-company

 

[czahnle]

Thank you everyone. I did speak to Wally a few weeks ago and I recently sent him a few pics of the serial numbers found. The canoe is not too far from where he is located and he stated we could stop by with the canoe so he could take a look at it as well. That is still the plan when we decide to pick the canoe up and transport back north.

 

[czahnle]

Good morning all, spoke to Wally yesterday and he seems to think the canoes build date is around 1950-51 time frame. No date set yet to pick the canoe up and stop by his shop for him to peek at. Hope to upload some better pics and such from that visit then.

 

[Benson Gray]

I agree based on the chart of known St. Louis serial numbers and dates shown below. Please post the date for yours here if Wally can find one. Thanks,

Benson

 

[czahnle]

Good afternoon all. My friend delivered the Canoe to me vs. picking it up. It was a rush decision as his mother died and the house was selling so items had to move quickly. Anyway, here are more pictures of the Canoe. I did wind up getting the 2008 issue featuring the story on the builder. It is a great read.