Antique YELLOWSTONE LAKE souvenir plate w/pic STEAM boat ZILLAH and M.B. WATERS

Description: A 5 3/4 inch wide ORIGINAL ANTIQUE souvenir plate from YELLOWSTONE LAKE in YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. It has a colorful hand finished picture of a boat, Steamer Zillah, crossing the water with an onlooker on shore. This is an ORIGINAL ANTIQUE plate, ca. early 1900s, well OVER 100 years old. Plate reads: "Steamer Zillah, Yellowstone Lake". Back reads: "WHEELOCK / MADE IN GERMANY / FOR / M. B. WATERS / YELLOWSTONE PARK, WYO. / DRESDEN". For history of who M. B. Waters and Steamer Zillah are, see below in BLUE. Condition: Plate is in EXCELLENT CLEAN condition. It has minimal wear, NO cracks, chips, dings, damage, etc., looks perfect. The plate holder is NOT part of this sale, it is just a prop to hold the plate for photo'ing. Please see pictures for best idea of plate's overall appearance / condition. Age: An ORIGINAL ANTIQUE souvenir china plate, ca. late 1800s - early 1900, well over 100 years old. Shipping: FREE DOMESTIC shipping. We DO ship Internationally but we do NOT insure International orders UNLESS BUYER SPECIFICALLY REQUESTS THIS AND WE ARE ABLE to provide an insurance estimate. It is becoming increasingly difficult to insure international orders and the price can exceed the price of the item, which can negate the sale. If an international shipping charge is much more than the actual shipping cost, we will refund the excess so what YOU pay for shipping/insurance is very close to, if not exactly, the ACTUAL shipping costs! This is important for foreign buyers to know as most of our foreign shipping charges are estimates. We do not falsify information on the Customs Form, such as a price other than what the actual purchase price is, so please do not request us to do so. We ship several times a week and your prompt payment will hasten the turn-around time.This is a scarce, early and authenticate antique souvenir / advertising plate from old day YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. The picture on the front with the STEAMSHIP traversing Yellowstone Lake is beautiful, nothing short of a piece of art, making this plate a museum worthy archive from YELLOWSTONE PARK, well OVER a CENTURY OLD. Antique plates like this are always desirable as they have the name of the area, town and state that they are souvenirs from and have colorful scenes, pictures, designs, logos on them. For example this one has 'Steamer Zillah on Yellowstone Lake' on it and the backside has the name of Yellowstone Park Wyoming on it along with the name "M. B. WATERS". I believe that the name M. B. Waters is actually "E.C. WATERS" (Ela Collins Waters) who in 1887, was hired to run the YELLOWSTONE PARK ASSOCIATION (YPA). It seems that Waters' owned and operated the ZILLAH, it was one of two ships that he owned. Between these two boats and his administration of their activities, he came to have a very dubious reputation. The ZILLAH was built in Iowa in the 1880's and began its career plowing the waters of Lake Minnetonka, 15 miles from St. Paul, Minn. In 1889 the YPA purchased the boat, stripped it down into 3 pieces, and had it shipped to Yellowstone Park. At that time Waters' named the ship 'Zillah', to honor the president of the NPRR, who had a daughter of that name. Previous to water travel, park visitors had to rely on horseback, wagons and carriages, which was a rough way to travel in the still-primitive wilderness of the park's interior. So steamships were a huge success and traveling on the Zillah was an extremely popular tourist attraction. Thousands of people rode the Zillah and it became part of the Yellowstone Park experience for two decades. By 1907 the ship had fallen into disrepair and the costs associated with keeping it 'lake-worthy' were thought to be better spent on a newer, bigger vessel. Around this time E. C. Waters had contracted with a ship builder for a larger steamship, including it's delivery and assembly, a significant feat when one thinks of the logistics involved in getting a gigantic ship delivered into the interior of the rocky mountains. Water's named the new ship after himself, the "E.C. WATERS", and it was purposed to be the successor to the Zillah. In 1907 the Zillah was no longer 'lake-worthy' and from this point its fate is a mystery. Whatever happened to the Zillah? It seems the last tangible piece of evidence lie in a 1920's picture where it is shown beached, high above the water line on the shore of Yellowstone Lake. Then it vanishes from the historical record and no one seems to remember what became of it? One story claims it was towed into deep waters and sunk, another that it lie abandoned on the shore and parted out for other uses and scrap and what was left, if anything, disintegrated into the shoreline of the lake. Move forward in time a century and it is still a mystery despite decades of park personnel and others searching for it. Without too much story telling, after a century of time, all that is left of the successor ship, the E.C. Waters', lies washed up and rotted out on Stevenson Island in the lake. Yet the fate of the Zillah is just a guess. Whatever happened to the ship that traversed Yellowstone lake for nearly 20 years, that carried tens of thousands of happy passengers during this time, that even towed a barge loaded with elk and bison to and from a small island in the lake? In summary, all that is left of the Zillah is a memory brought back to life with a little souvenir plate like this, which make it a great relic and hold a story about the early days of YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, check it out! Terms of Sale: Our goal is 100% customer satisfaction. We put our 30+ years of experience in antiques to use in describing every item we list. Items are sold in a store front format and your purchase is a binding contract, so please don't be hasty when looking over the listing. We find that communication is the key to successful transactions so PLEASE completely read the item description AND ask questions before purchasing, thank you!4471-74zALABAMA ALASKA ARIZONA ARKANSAS CALIFORNIA COLORADO CONNECTICUT DELAWARE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA FLORIDA GEORGIA HAWAII IDAHO ILLINOIS INDIANA IOWA KANSAS KENTUCKY LOUISIANA MAINE MARYLAND MASSACHUSETTS MICHIGAN MINNESOTA MISSISSIPPI MISSOURI MONTANA NEBRASKA NEVADA NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW JERSEY NEW MEXICO NEW YORK NORTH CAROLINA NORTH DAKOTA OHIO OKLAHOMA OREGON PENNSYLVANIA RHODE ISLAND SOUTH CAROLINA SOUTH DAKOTA TENNESSEE TEXAS UTAH VERMONT VIRGINIA WASHINGTON WEST VIRGINIA WISCONSIN WYOMING.

Price: 149.99 USD

Location: Libby, Montana

End Time: 2025-02-06T02:59:00.000Z

Shipping Cost: 0 USD