Petersen loved to write, and his most famous work is the epic Steamboating on the Mississippi. Petersen was born on the banks of the Mississippi at Dubuque, Iowa, where his father worked for the Diamond Jo Steamboat Line.
During his graduate research, Petersen hitch-hiked 20,000 miles, including 3,000 miles aboard Federal Barge Line boats. He visited river towns, large and small, interviewing river people, pouring through old newspaper files, and collecting steamboat photographs, bills of lading, and anything relating to steamboating. The resulting Steamboating on the Upper Mississippi is considered by many to be the most readable steamboat history ever written.
“Steamboat Bill” also wrote: True Tales of Iowa; Two Hundred Topics in Iowa History; Towboating on the Mississippi; Mississippi River Panorama; Iowa: The Rivers of Her Valleys; Looking Backward on Iowa. He contributed twenty articles to the Dictionary of American History, wrote for several encyclopedias, and penned 300 articles in the Iowa State Historical Society Palimpsest.