7. The Delta Queen is a National Historic Landmark, scheduled to resume cruising America’s rivers
The Delta Queen is a stern mounted paddle-wheel riverboat, built in California in 1927 to operate between Sacramento and San Francisco. In 1946, after the vessel served as a water ambulance transferring wounded from hospital ships to San Francisco hospitals during World War II, it was towed through the Panama Canal, up the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers to Pittsburgh, and renovated for service on the aforementioned rivers as well as the Tennessee and Cumberland. In the 1960s changes to the law made the operation of the Delta Queen as a passenger steamer illegal unless it was granted a congressional exemption, which it was several times over the years, allowing it to continue to operate until 2008.
Since that time the vessel was used for several purposes, including as a floating hotel in Chattanooga. Efforts by various groups to restore the steamboat to operation as an excursion vessel reached a climax in November 2018, when the House of Representatives granted an exemption from the Safety at Sea law which had prevented the Delta Queen from carrying passengers due to its construction not being of flame retardant materials. Besides being itself the sole surviving paddle-wheel steamer on America’s rivers, the Delta Queen also carries a steam calliope, which was used to play as the boat was docking and undocking at its various ports of call. It was typical of the Delta Queen when approaching its dock at Cincinnati or Marietta to entertain those watching with a rendition of Beautiful Ohio.