One day in 1985 a boy called David Hawley heard about the hundreds of nineteenth century steamboats that had sunk along the Missouri River, their contents often being preserved in the mud. David was thrilled, and told his father Bob the story. Bob had always wanted to do something adventurous, so he decided to salvage cargo from one of the steamboats.
First, the Hawley family used their spare time, for a year or so, to visit libraries and research sunken boats. They decided to look for the " Arabia" , which sank in 1856 in Kansas, not far from the Hawley's home . As the Missouri River changes its course a lot the wreck was now under a field about 800 meters from the river bank. It's approximate position was known from the records of two earlier salvage attempts that failed. With the permission of the land's owner, the Hawley's used a metal detector to locate the buried steamboat.