The Bergeron sisters spent most of their lives hearing stories about the largest sternwheeler in history. And those stories, told by their father, Wilbert Paul Bergeron, weren’t fairy tales or fodder from history books. They were his life.

In 1928, Bergeron, at 24, was a deckhand on the towboat that was commonly referred to as &#8220Big Mama.” The 318-foot boat set records for pushing the largest tow of barges handled by a steam-powered vessel.

Bergeron, who lived near Baton Rouge, worked on the boat for a couple of years, but became a part of its history nonetheless.

On Friday, two of his three daughters, Corinne Causey and Judy Oufnac, will tell one of their father’s stories as the Vicksburg Riverfront Mural Committee unveils its 20th historical floodwall mural. The 14- by 24-foot mural depicts the Sprague, backed by a sunset.

&#8220There are just not many people (who worked on the Sprague) left,” said Nellie Caldwell, chairman of the committee that has coordinated the sale, design and painting of historic murals on panels of the concrete floodwall at City Front.

Although Bergeron died in the 1990s at 83, his daughters remember his stories, particularly one about how he threw a crate of strawberries that belonged to the Sprague pilot overboard.

&#8220He was ordered to throw the crates overboard,” Causey said. &#8220He was called to the pilot house…the pilot said ‘Don’t let it happen again.’ Soon after, word had gotten out and people on deck started calling him ‘Strawberry King.’”

The name stuck and so did the family’s connection to Vicksburg and the famous boat, which the city purchased for $1 from its owner, a division of Standard Oil, and moved to City Front in 1948.

The boat remained in the Yazoo Canal on static display and open to tourists until it burned on April 15, 1974. Efforts to restore the boat went on for years, but it was eventually scrapped, with only a few remnants salvaged for display.

Causey, who does genealogy, was actually digging around for some information on her great-great-grandfather to find out more about his involvement in the Civil War, in which he was believed to have been a prisoner in Vicksburg, when she found the partially completed Sprague mural staring her in the face.

&#8220I got out our old, 50-year-old encyclopedia and accidentally turned to a page with the Sprague,” she said.

After writing a letter in February to the Vicksburg-Warren County Chamber of Commerce requesting more information, she received a reply from Caldwell.

&#8220It was very coincidental that they were in the middle of painting the Sprague mural,” Caldwell said.

Now, the sisters are here to give a nod to their father, who worked on the boat at the height of its nearly 50-year career of towing, hauling and pushing. The boat pushed barges on the Lower Mississippi River for the Monongahela River Consolidated Coal and Coke Co. for many years before being sold to the Esso Corp. of Baton Rouge to move petroleum barges on the Mississippi. After a short hiatus, the Sprague was reactivated during World War II, again to move petroleum, and earned a second nickname, &#8220The Oil Pipeline That Runs North and South On The Mississippi.”

In 1927, the sternwheel steamboat rescued about 20,000 people from rooftops, trees and floating debris during the Mississippi River flood.

After the Sprague was retired to City Front, it also became home to &#8220Gold in the Hills,” an 1890s melodrama first performed in 1936 on a stage built in the front part of the boiler room. A collection of photographs and boat models also formed an on-board museum that was started by Dr. Walter Johnston, who drowned on the river nearly a decade before the fire.

After the fire, community members formed the Save Our Sprague committee to raise money and promote interest in restoring the boat. The hull had survived the blaze and the steel superstructure was untouched. Efforts were unsuccessful and the Sprague was eventually removed from the Yazoo Diversion Canal in pieces to a flat area just east of the fill area of the E.W. Haining Industrial Center to prevent the hull from breaking.

The fire destroyed the hog chains, which had helped stabilize the hull, eventually causing it to fracture when it was again returned to the Yazoo Diversion Canal in preparation for restoration efforts that never happened. Wakes from passing boats caused the hull to crack in 1979, when it was cut to pieces with explosives and removed from the canal.

Efforts by the S.O.S. committee continued, but a lack of funds collected before the fire matching a state grant kept them from receiving the financial help needed.

The $16,500 mural, painted by Robert Dafford Murals, was purchased with a combination of funds remaining from that S.O.S. committee and donations from Dr. Walter Johnston Jr., Steve Golding and Vicksburg Factory Outlets.

In the movie version of the musical &#8220Showboat,” it was the Sprague that rounded a bend as Paul Robeson sang. Friday’s unveiling, complete with a rendition of &#8220Ole Man River,” will not only be a day for two daughters to honor their &#8220Strawberry King,” but also a chance for the community to remember &#8220Big Mama” and the mark she left on Vicksburg.

&#8220For every unveiling, we really try to do something special that pertains to that mural,” Caldwell said. &#8220It’s just so very special.”