As the glinting St. Louis' Gateway Arch framed the setting sun one mid-August evening, the steamboat Delta Queen eased away from her landing and headed upriver, her bright-red paddle thrashing astern. In the week ahead, we would sail 659 miles along the meandering Upper Mississippi River and negotiate 26 locks en route to St. Paul, our final port. The average of 100 miles a day may take just that many minutes in a car, but speed and distance become irrelevant after a full day on the river.
I find my favorite spot on deck, one of two wooden swings on the forward observation deck, known on this boat as the Front Porch of America. Forested banks, marshy coves and high bluffs fringe the Upper Mississippi, and the approach to each town becomes a major event. The Delta Queen's throaty whistle and cheerful tunes from the 100-year-old calliope announce the steamboat's arrival and draw people down to the river.
The Mississippi is a vibrant commercial waterway, and long strings of barges pushed by towboats move huge loads of grain, coal, scrap iron and fuel. During locking operations, people ashore share news, weather and just plain chatter with passengers lining the rails as they have since the steamboat's invention 200 years ago.
The Birth of an Icon
On June 2, 2007, Delta Queen, a National Historic Landmark and now the flagship of the Majestic America Line fleet, turned 80. On that same day in 1927, a brand-new million dollar steamboat named the Delta Queen made her maiden revenue voyage from San Francisco overnight up the Sacramento River to the California state capital at Sacramento.
The steamboats Delta Queen and her consort, the Delta King, operated by the California Transportation Company, sailed from opposite landings that afternoon and passed each other about midnight, exchanging whistles. The pair immediately captured the public's imagination for luxurious travel at an affordable price.
Public rooms and cabins were paneled in oak and Oregon cedar, and the decks and railings were teak. After a fine dinner in the dining saloon spanning the boat's width, passengers had the choice of a forward-facing smoking room; a stained-glass, sky-lighted interior social hall on the saloon deck; and an observation lounge forward on the deck above reached by a grand mahogany staircase with brass steps.
Sadly, the heyday of Delta Queen and Delta King did not last long. There was the Depression, of course, but also the impact of the automobile (and the growing popularity of road trips). Trains became faster and more comfortable. World War II broke out, and at that point, the steamboats, repainted in battleship gray, became floating barracks and then troop and hospitable transports in San Francisco Bay.
Back in the Midwest, Tom R. and Mary "Ma" Greene, both licensed river pilots and owners of the Greene Line, kept their eyes on Delta Queen. After the war, the U.S. Maritime Commission put the two steamboats up for auction, and the couple bought the DQ for $46,250. Boarded up for a dangerous open-ocean tow from the San Francisco Bay Area via the Panama Canal to the Mississippi, Delta Queen left on April 17, 1947 and arrived safely in New Orleans 4,777 nautical miles later. Under its own steam, Delta Queen sailed 829 miles up the Mississippi and 511 more up the Ohio to Pittsburgh where the vessel underwent six months of rebuilding for extended river cruises.
Although the refit almost bankrupted Tom and "Ma," the Delta Queen made its first revenue cruise on June 30, 1948, from Cincinnati to Cairo, Illinois, and back, heralding the start of the longest stage of her long life and bringing her up to the present almost 60 years later.
A New Era for Steamboats?
In the late 1960's, when Congress enacted the first Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) laws that doomed many older ships with wooden superstructures, it looked like the end for Delta Queen. A well-organized national campaign initiated by a determined woman named Betty Blake generated some 250,000 letters of support based on the fact that the riverboat was never far from shore and lots of fire prevention steps would be implemented. After a long battle, an amendment to the SOLAS bill was passed by the House of Representatives on November 1, 1970, followed by the Senate's approval a month later and signed by President Richard Nixon on December 31, 1970.
Delta Queen was granted an extraordinary exemption that was reviewed and extended at regular intervals over the decades, with the next scheduled one for late in 2008. With an unblemished safety record, it looked like clear sailing for the foreseeable future. Alas, trouble beckons. In what's widely regarded as a political move, some former labor union crew members began making public statements implying that Delta Queen was not safe. In response, some high-ranking members of Congress went along with them to then disallow the exemption. The current new owners, Majestic America Line, accepted the situation and then reported that Delta Queen, with her high maintenance costs, was only marginally profitable at best. So without the owners behind it, Delta Queen will sail its last voyage in November 2008, well before its time.
Regardless, a movement is afoot to change the decision; we shall see.
In the meantime, the boat's milestones are impressive. Delta Queen has now clocked up more than 2 million miles and has carried more than 500,000 passengers, including Presidents Jimmy Carter and Harry Truman; First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson; and British royalty in Princess Margaret, amongst many others.
She is not a fancy palace steamer like her tarted-up running mates, Mississippi Queen and American Queen, which were designed and built in far more contemporary eras to replicate the steamboat experience. Instead Delta Queen is genuine, a wooden western rivers steamboat and a tangible link to the past when hundreds of steamboats plied America's rivers. From the columned forward lower lounge, the original grand staircase with shiny brass steps rises to the mirrored Victorian-style Texas Lounge, where the popcorn machine gets popping at 11 a.m. I am there minutes later to fill up a basket.
In the dining room down on the old freight deck, the food is a delicious celebration of genuine American cooking with southern and Cajun specialties. I love the spicy seafood gumbo, stuffed fried catfish and sinfully chocolate Mississippi Mud Pie. After dinner, the space becomes an old-fashioned music hall featuring great American ragtime, Dixieland, jazz and blues.
My favorite cabins have doors that open onto the Sun and Texas Decks with deck chairs positioned just outside. Larger staterooms on the Cabin Deck feature stained-glass transoms and open to the central Betty Blake Lounge, a plush portrait and steamboat memorabilia gallery dotted with overstuffed couches and chairs.
The engine room is open to inspection, and a visit reveals an eye-popping feast of brass dials and slowly heaving Pitman arms that turn the thrashing red sternwheel. On all my Delta Queen cruises dating back to 1985, I have asked chief engineers and captains the same question: "How long can she last?" And their answers are always, "Forever, as long as she is properly maintained."
But sadly that is not to be. In a year's time, you won't be hearing Delta Queen arrive before you see it, whistling its approach and emitting a rainbow of colors and sounds from her calliope at such diverse landings as Natchez and New Orleans, Cairo and Chattanooga, Prairie du Chien and Pittsburgh, Shiloh and St. Paul, towns and cities that got their start during steamboat days.
There is one memory that I will always cherish. On my last Delta Queen trip, I was staying in a cabin off the Betty Blake Lounge. While walking past the four aft-most cabins on this deck, someone tapped sharply on all the windows as I passed. I could see the movement on the drawn curtains and shades but no one inside. My brother nearby heard the tapping too. I went inside and looked at the four cabins doors, all shut tight.
My stewardess came along and I told her what happened. She said, "That's the spirit of Ma Greene, and she obviously likes you. She was saying hello. You and your brother are occupying the cabin where she lived out her last years and died. Her spirit now lives in this linen closet between these four cabins."
I have never believed in ghosts but I think I do now, and I am delighted to be on the good side of the woman who helped save a quintessential American icon 60 years ago. Hopefully, her Delta Queen home will remain open somewhere for all to enjoy for generations to come.
--by Ted Scull, contributor, and author of 100 Best Cruise Vacations, has spent five years at sea aboard almost every type of passenger carrying vessel imaginable. His newest book, Ocean Liner Twilight, personal accounts of his early sea travels, came out in October 2007.
As the glinting St. Louis' Gateway Arch framed the setting sun one mid-August evening, the steamboat 
On June 2, 2007, Delta Queen, a National Historic Landmark and now the flagship of the 
In the late 1960's, when Congress enacted the first Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) laws that doomed many older ships with wooden superstructures, it looked like the end for Delta Queen. A well-organized national campaign initiated by a determined woman named Betty Blake generated some 250,000 letters of support based on the fact that the riverboat was never far from shore and lots of fire prevention steps would be implemented. After a long battle, an amendment to the SOLAS bill was passed by the House of Representatives on November 1, 1970, followed by the Senate's approval a month later and signed by President Richard Nixon on December 31, 1970.
My favorite cabins have doors that open onto the Sun and Texas Decks with deck chairs positioned just outside. Larger staterooms on the Cabin Deck feature stained-glass transoms and open to the central Betty Blake Lounge, a plush portrait and steamboat memorabilia gallery dotted with overstuffed couches and chairs.
