UPDATE: Legislation proposing to return the historic 1920s Delta Queen riverboat to Missouri sailed through the Senate (85-12) and now heads to the House of Representatives for approval.
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As noted in a previous column, the Delta Queen was a wooden steamboat built in the 1920s. It carried three U.S. Presidents and various other dignitaries among its thousands of passengers and also served as a naval ship during World War II. It is designated as a U.S. National Historic Landmark.
Beginning in 1966, the Delta Queen was exempted from a law passed by Congress regulating passenger vessels carrying 50 or more passengers overnight on domestic U.S. waters. That exemption expired in 2008. This legislation would restore the long-running exemption and require the Delta Queen, which is fully compliant with all other Coast Guard safety regulations, to annually modify at least ten percent of the wooden portions of the vessel’s superstructure to comply with the federal safety law requirements.
The St. Louis region is expected to experience a significant economic impact from the Delta Queen, creating more than 170 jobs locally and bringing in more than $36.4 million to the St. Louis region annually. It is expected that the Delta Queen will begin and end a number of its cruises each year in Kimmswick and will visit more than 80 other ports in the United States.
Sail on!