Delta Queen has new home in Missouri
Hopes for the Delta Queen to make its home on a banks of Cincinnati seem to be sunk. The Delta Queen Steamboat Company announced Thursday that the new corporate headquarters and homeport for the iconic riverboat will be located in Kimmswick, Missouri, just south of St. Louis.
Designated a National Historic Landmark, the boat was purchased by its current owners in February and has been undergoing an extensive renovation, estimated to cost $7 million.
The owners hope to have the Delta Queen back in service in 2016. They plan to take the ship to more than 80 ports throughout the country, including Cincinnati.
One of the ultimate goals is to provide the public overnight cruises on the vessel, but the 1966 Safety at Sea law currently prohibits wooden ships the size of the Delta Queen from that practice.
This summer, U.S. Sens. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Westwood, introduced legislation that would create new safety requirements for the 88-year-old paddlewheel vessel and grant a 15-year exemption to rules covering wooden ships such as the Delta Queen.
Previous attempts to pass similar legislation have failed.
Chabot: Delta Queen belongs on the Ohio, Miss. rivers
Thursday's press release cites the Jefferson County Economic Development Corporation as saying the Delta Queen will have a massive economic impact on the St. Louis area, creating more than 170 jobs locally and bringing in more than $36.4 million to the region annually.
“The Delta Queen will not only develop a greater awareness of Kimmswick as a historical destination but will re-establish the city as an important American riverboat district as it was in the late nineteenth century,” Kimmswick Mayor Philip Stang said in the release.
The Delta Queen began service May 20, 1927, in California. It is deemed the last steamboat of its kind with a wooden superstructure accommodating passengers on overnight river cruises.
After a brief period of service in the U.S. Navy during World War II, the vessel was sold as war surplus to Capt. Tom Greene, who owned Greene Line Steamers in Cincinnati. The vessel was located in Cincinnati from 1946 until 1985. It was in New Orleans until 2008.
The vessel most recently operated as a dockside hotel in Chattanooga, Tennessee, from 2009 until 2014.