Delta Queen
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
sternwheel steamboat
Steamboat
A steamboat or steamship, sometimes called a steamer, is a ship in which the primary method of propulsion is steam power, typically driving propellers or paddlewheels...
that is a U.S. National Historic Landmark
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...
. Historically, she has been used for cruising
Cruising (maritime)
Cruising by boat is a lifestyle that involves living for extended time on a boat while traveling from place to place for pleasure. Cruising generally refers to trips of a few days or more, and can extend to round-the-world voyages.- History :...
the major rivers that constitute the drainage of the Mississippi River
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
, particularly in the American South. As of June 2009, she is docked in Chattanooga, Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
and has been converted into a hotel. It is possible that she will come back on the rivers.
The Delta Queen is 285 feet long (86.9 m), 58 feet (17.7m) wide, and draws 11.5 feet (3.5m). She weighs 1,650 ton
Ton
The ton is a unit of measure. It has a long history and has acquired a number of meanings and uses over the years. It is used principally as a unit of weight, and as a unit of volume. It can also be used as a measure of energy, for truck classification, or as a colloquial term.It is derived from...
s (1,676 metric tons), with a capacity of 176 passengers. Her cross-compounded steam engines generate 2000 ihp, powering a stern
Stern
The stern is the rear or aft-most part of a ship or boat, technically defined as the area built up over the sternpost, extending upwards from the counter rail to the taffrail. The stern lies opposite of the bow, the foremost part of a ship. Originally, the term only referred to the aft port section...
-mounted paddlewheel.
History
The hull, first two decks and steam engines were ordered in 1924 from the William Denny & BrothersWilliam Denny and Brothers
William Denny and Brothers Limited, and often referred to simply as Denny, were a Scottish shipbuilding company.-History:The Company was founded by Peter Denny in 1840 and based in Dumbarton, on the River Clyde. Although the Denny yard was situated near the junction of the River Clyde and the River...
shipyard on the River Leven
River Leven, Dunbartonshire
The River Leven is a stretch of water in West Dunbartonshire, Scotland, flowing from Loch Lomond in the North to the River Clyde in the South...
adjoining the River Clyde
River Clyde
The River Clyde is a major river in Scotland. It is the ninth longest river in the United Kingdom, and the third longest in Scotland. Flowing through the major city of Glasgow, it was an important river for shipbuilding and trade in the British Empire....
at Dumbarton, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
. The Delta Queen and her sister boat, the Delta King
Delta King
The Delta King is a . The Delta King is the sister ship to the Delta Queen, both christened May 20, 1927, traveling between Sacramento, California and San Francisco, California on 10-hour trips.-History:...
, were shipped in pieces to Stockton, California
Stockton, California
Stockton, California, the seat of San Joaquin County, is the fourth-largest city in the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California. With a population of 291,707 at the 2010 census, Stockton ranks as this state's 13th largest city...
in 1926. There the California Transportation Company assembled the two vessels for their regular Sacramento River
Sacramento River
The Sacramento River is an important watercourse of Northern and Central California in the United States. The largest river in California, it rises on the eastern slopes of the Klamath Mountains, and after a journey south of over , empties into Suisun Bay, an arm of the San Francisco Bay, and...
service between San Francisco and Sacramento
Sacramento, California
Sacramento is the capital city of the U.S. state of California and the county seat of Sacramento County. It is located at the confluence of the Sacramento River and the American River in the northern portion of California's expansive Central Valley. With a population of 466,488 at the 2010 census,...
, and excursions to Stockton, on the San Joaquin River
San Joaquin River
The San Joaquin River is the largest river of Central California in the United States. At over long, the river starts in the high Sierra Nevada, and flows through a rich agricultural region known as the San Joaquin Valley before reaching Suisun Bay, San Francisco Bay, and the Pacific Ocean...
. At the time, they were the most lavishly appointed and expensive sternwheel passenger boats ever commissioned. Driven out of service by a new highway
Highway
A highway is any public road. In American English, the term is common and almost always designates major roads. In British English, the term designates any road open to the public. Any interconnected set of highways can be variously referred to as a "highway system", a "highway network", or a...
linking Sacramento with San Francisco in 1940, the two vessels were laid up and then purchased by Isbrandtsen Steamship Lines
American Export-Isbrandtsen Lines
American Export-Isbrandtsen Lines, New York, was the leading US-flag shipping company between the US east coast and the Mediterranean from 1919 to 1977, offering both Cargo ship services and Passenger ship services, until declaring bankruptcy and was acquired by Farrell Lines, New York.-American...
for service out of New Orleans. During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, they were requisitioned by the U.S. Navy for duty in San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay is a shallow, productive estuary through which water draining from approximately forty percent of California, flowing in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers from the Sierra Nevada mountains, enters the Pacific Ocean...
as USS Delta Queen (YFB-56).
Three different United States Presidents have sailed on the Delta Queen: Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover was the 31st President of the United States . Hoover was originally a professional mining engineer and author. As the United States Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he promoted partnerships between government and business...
, Harry Truman, and Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
.
In 1946, Delta Queen was purchased by Greene Line of Cincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio. Cincinnati is the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located to north of the Ohio River at the Ohio-Kentucky border, near Indiana. The population within city limits is 296,943 according to the 2010 census, making it Ohio's...
and towed via the Panama Canal
Panama Canal
The Panama Canal is a ship canal in Panama that joins the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean and is a key conduit for international maritime trade. Built from 1904 to 1914, the canal has seen annual traffic rise from about 1,000 ships early on to 14,702 vessels measuring a total of 309.6...
and the Mississippi
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
and Ohio River
Ohio River
The Ohio River is the largest tributary, by volume, of the Mississippi River. At the confluence, the Ohio is even bigger than the Mississippi and, thus, is hydrologically the main stream of the whole river system, including the Allegheny River further upstream...
s to be refurbished in Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...
. On that ocean trip she was piloted by Frederick Way Jr.
Frederick Way Jr.
Fredrick Way, Jr. was the youngest steamboat captain on the Ohio River and Mississippi River. He was the author of books on the boats that ply the inland waterways...
. In 1948 she entered regular passenger service, plying the waters of the Ohio, Mississippi, Tennessee
Tennessee River
The Tennessee River is the largest tributary of the Ohio River. It is approximately 652 miles long and is located in the southeastern United States in the Tennessee Valley. The river was once popularly known as the Cherokee River, among other names...
, and Cumberland River
Cumberland River
The Cumberland River is a waterway in the Southern United States. It is long. It starts in Harlan County in far southeastern Kentucky between Pine and Cumberland mountains, flows through southern Kentucky, crosses into northern Tennessee, and then curves back up into western Kentucky before...
s between Cincinnati, New Orleans, St.Paul, Chattanooga
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Chattanooga is the fourth-largest city in the US state of Tennessee , with a population of 169,887. It is the seat of Hamilton County...
, Nashville
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
, and ports in between. Ownership of the vessel has changed a number of times over the last fifty years, and since 1971, Delta Queen has operated with a presidential exemption to the law prohibiting the operation of overnight passenger vessels with wooden superstructures. Her Betty Blake Lounge is named in honor of the lady who rose from secretary to president of the steamship line and who lobbied for the exemption.
The Delta Queen was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
in 1970 and further was declared a National Historic Landmark
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...
in 1989.
Current duty
Delaware North Companies
Delaware North Companies is a global food service and hospitality company headquartered in Buffalo, New York The company operates in the lodging, sporting, airport, gaming and entertainment industries. The company employs over 50,000 people worldwide and has over $2 billion in annual revenues...
in April 2006. Besides the Delta Queen, the company also owns the American Queen
American Queen
American Queen is the largest steamboat ever built. The ship was built in 1995 and is a six-deck recreation of a classic Mississippi riverboat, built by the Delta Queen Steamboat Company...
and Mississippi Queen
Mississippi Queen (steamboat)
The Mississippi Queen was the second largest paddle wheel driven river steamboat ever built. The ship was the largest such steamboat when she was built in 1976 by the Delta Queen Steamboat Company at Jeffboat in Indiana and was a seven-deck recreation of a classic Mississippi riverboat now owned by...
, modern steamboats designed along the lines of the Delta Queen, but carrying around 400 passengers. The company also owns riverboats that have seen service on the Columbia and Snake Rivers in Oregon and Washington, and the Alaska Inside Passage.
The Delta Queen cruised the Mississippi River and its tributaries
Tributary
A tributary or affluent is a stream or river that flows into a main stem river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean...
on a regular schedule, with cruises ranging from New Orleans to Memphis to St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
to St. Paul to Cincinnati to Pittsburgh, and many more. In some cruises, the vessel probed rivers such as the Arkansas
Arkansas River
The Arkansas River is a major tributary of the Mississippi River. The Arkansas generally flows to the east and southeast as it traverses the U.S. states of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. The river's initial basin starts in the Western United States in Colorado, specifically the Arkansas...
, Red
Red River (Mississippi watershed)
The Red River, or sometimes the Red River of the South, is a major tributary of the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers in the southern United States of America. The river gains its name from the red-bed country of its watershed. It is one of several rivers with that name...
, Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway
Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway
The Tennessee–Tombigbee Waterway is a 234-mile man-made, artificial waterway that extends from the Tennessee River to the junction of the Black Warrior-Tombigbee River system near Demopolis, Alabama, United States. The Tenneessee-Tombigbee Waterway links commercial navigation from the nation’s...
, Black Warrior
Black Warrior River
The Black Warrior River is a waterway in west central Alabama in the southeastern United States. The river rises in the extreme southern edges of the Appalachian Highlands and flows 178 miles to the Tombigbee River, of which the Black Warrior is the primary tributary...
, Mobile
Mobile River
The Mobile River is located in southern Alabama in the United States. Formed out of the confluence of the Tombigbee and Alabama rivers, the approximately river drains an area of of Alabama, with a watershed extending into Mississippi, Georgia, and Tennessee. Its drainage basin is the...
, and more.
Kentucky Derby Festival
The Kentucky Derby Festival is an annual festival held in Louisville, Kentucky during the two weeks preceding the first Saturday in May, the day of the Kentucky Derby...
, when it raced with the Belle of Louisville
Belle of Louisville
The Belle of Louisville is a steamboat owned and operated by the city of Louisville, Kentucky and moored at its downtown wharf next to the Riverfront Plaza/Belvedere during its annual operational period...
on the Ohio at Louisville
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
in the Great Steamboat Race
Great Steamboat Race
The Great Steamboat Race is an annual event, taking place the Wednesday before the first Saturday of May, three days before the Kentucky Derby as part of the Kentucky Derby Festival. The race was first run in 1963 and it takes place on the Ohio River in the span that runs between Louisville,...
. The winner of the annual race would received a trophy of gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
en antlers, which was mounted on the pilot house until the next race. They also raced during the Tall Stacks
Tall Stacks
Tall Stacks, formally known as the Tall Stacks Music, Arts, and Heritage Festival, is a festival held every three or four years in the Cincinnati, Ohio area, which celebrates the city's heritage of the riverboat. The sixth edition was held on October 4 through October 8, 2006...
festivals celebrating steamboats, held every three or four years in Cincinnati (the Delta Queen's former home port).
On August 1, 2007, Majestic America Line announced that the Delta Queen would cease operations permanently at the end of the 2008 season. The temporary exemption from SOLAS
International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea
The International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea is an international maritime safety treaty. The SOLAS Convention in its successive forms is generally regarded as the most important of all international treaties concerning the safety of merchant ships.- History :The first version of the...
needed to keep the Queen running was reportedly thrown out in a recent Congressional decision.
In response to this announcement, in September 2007 the MSP
Members of the 3rd Scottish Parliament
This is a list of Members of the Scottish Parliament or, in Gaelic, Buill Pàrlamaid na h-Alba elected to the third Scottish Parliament at the 2007 election...
for Dumbarton
Dumbarton (Scottish Parliament constituency)
Dumbarton is a constituency of the Scottish Parliament . It elects one Member of the Scottish Parliament by the first past the post method of election...
, Jackie Baillie
Jackie Baillie
Jacqueline Marie Baillie is a Scottish Labour Party Member of the Scottish Parliament for the Dumbarton constituency and Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Health, Wellbeing and Cities Strategy.-Background:...
, backed by 15 other Members, submitted a motion to the Scottish Parliament
Scottish Parliament
The Scottish Parliament is the devolved national, unicameral legislature of Scotland, located in the Holyrood area of the capital, Edinburgh. The Parliament, informally referred to as "Holyrood", is a democratically elected body comprising 129 members known as Members of the Scottish Parliament...
calling for the preservation of the ship.
In the United States, devotees of the boat created a renewed "Save the Delta Queen" campaign similar to the one undertaken in the 1970s.
However, at the end of the 2008 season, the Delta Queen ceased all service. On its official website, the Majestic America Line announced it is ending all operations, will not operate in 2009, and that its assets, including all its riverboats, are for sale.
On February 11, 2009, the Delta Queen arrived in Chattanooga, Tennessee
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Chattanooga is the fourth-largest city in the US state of Tennessee , with a population of 169,887. It is the seat of Hamilton County...
to become a floating boutique hotel, as it was feared the vessel could be vandalized if it remained in New Orleans. Under lease to Chattanooga businessman Harry Phillips, she's now docked at Coolidge Park Landing on Chattanooga's North Shore. The Delta Queen Hotel officially opened for overnight guests on June 5, 2009, offering dining, a lounge, live period music and theatrical performances.
The ship is currently owned by Ambassadors International, and is leased and operated by a company called All Aboard Travel, operating as Delta Queen LLC, which began leasing the vessel in August 2010. Ambassadors International listed the ship for sale beginning in late 2008 at a price of $4.75 million, and in November 2010 it was announced that a group called Save the Delta Queen 2010 was planning to place a bid to purchase the ship. If it succeeded, the group would place the ship into operation, carrying only 49 people in order to be exempt from federal fire safety regulations, which apply to ships carrying upwards of 50 people.
For a time, with the steamer American Queen
American Queen
American Queen is the largest steamboat ever built. The ship was built in 1995 and is a six-deck recreation of a classic Mississippi riverboat, built by the Delta Queen Steamboat Company...
turned over to MARAD
Marad
Marad was an ancient Sumerian city. Marad was situated on the west bank of the then western branch of the Upper Euphrates River west of Nippur in modern day Iraq and roughly 50 km southeast of Kish, on the Arahtu River.The city's ziggurat E-igi-kalama was dedicated to Ninurta the god of...
and the Mississippi Queen
Mississippi Queen (steamboat)
The Mississippi Queen was the second largest paddle wheel driven river steamboat ever built. The ship was the largest such steamboat when she was built in 1976 by the Delta Queen Steamboat Company at Jeffboat in Indiana and was a seven-deck recreation of a classic Mississippi riverboat now owned by...
sold for scrap below New Orleans, the Delta Queen was the only steamboat to have been owned by the Delta Queen Steamboat Company
Delta Queen Steamboat Company
The Greene Line was a line of river steamships along the Ohio River. The name was later changed to Delta Queen Steamboat Company.-History:...
(formerly Greene Line Steamers) to remain in service, albeit without running trips. However, as of November 2011, the Great American Steamboat Company of Memphis, Tennessee was booking cruises on the American Queen
American Queen
American Queen is the largest steamboat ever built. The ship was built in 1995 and is a six-deck recreation of a classic Mississippi riverboat, built by the Delta Queen Steamboat Company...
along the Upper and Lower Mississippi river.
External links
- Delta Queen Hotel official web site
- Ships of the World: An Historical Encyclopedia
- Majestic America Line official web site
- WCPO-TV (Cincinnati): Delta Queen sold to West Coast company
- Video Clips of Delta Queen
- Photos of Delta Queen in Cairo, IL 1968
- More information on the exemption at steamboats.org
- 2007 Save the Delta Queen Campaign
- Delta Queen National Historic Landmark Study (cache)