PERSONAL REMINISCES

 I owe all my childhood memories of the Admiral to my Grandma Helen Polley.  She is on the right of the photo taken on the Lido Deck by the pilot’s house, the boat’s control center. (We NEVER saw the inside of the pilot’s house!)  She took my cousin Pam Davis, my sister Elaine Polley and me on daytime cruises every summer.  My earliest recollections are probably from 1957.  We spent a lot of time on the 1^st Deck arcade, which was a wonderland to a lad of 6 years.  Later, the action would shift to the slippery dance floor.  A running start provided a good slide across the floor with the leather-soled shoes of the days.  (Present-day sneakers would not have worked!)  It was great fun until the staff suggested it was time to stop it. Eventually, we’d end up on the top Lido Deck for sightseeing.

I clearly recall getting lost on the huge Admiral when I was around 7 years old.  I wandered over to the bandstand, and they announced my name over the loudspeaker system.  In the meantime, a couple of very pretty teenage girls took a shine to me.  They took me out on the dance floor and whirled me around.  I hate to say it, but I was somewhat disappointed when Grandma Polley showed up. Things were going so well!

When I was in my late teens, I had a good group of friends.  We would go on the Admiral for the night cruises at least once in the summer.  By then, around 1968, I believe Bob Kuban’s band was in the ballroom, providing current hits with a nice, heavy brass emphasis.  We still wore coats and ties and girls were all dressed up.  It was always a very nice evening.

The good times aboard the Admiral continued into the 1970s with some changes.  The night cruises were always a very anticipated event in the summer.  My girlfriend, later my wife Bonnie, along with a usual crew of friends, had some great times on those cruises.  The St. Louis riverfront was aways packed on the weekend.  1973 saw the Admiral conversion from steam to diesel.  That removed a bit of the craft’s romance.  Popeye and Whimpy, those huge piston driver shafts now just sat in place, their paddle wheels replaced with modern propellers.  Streckfus claimed it was hard to find the parts for the old steam power plants. 

LEAKS

Our final evening cruise on the Admiral with our friends was in 1978, but things were off.  The air conditioning was not working.  The floors and tabletops were very sticky.  The tables and chairs were in disarray.  The windows in the Cabin were dirty.  Some windows had been punched out to let air in on the hot summer night(s). It was obvious that the Streckfus organization was milking the boat for profits while not putting any money back in for maintenance.

HAMMERED

The U.S. Coast Guard boarded the Admiral for a routine “hammer test” in 1979 involving tapping the hull to find weak spots.  The hammer went right through the hull in several locations.  While the Admiral’s above-water construction, dating from 1940, was 39 years old, its hull was another story.  As mentioned, the Admiral was built on the steel hull of the SS Albatross, a 1907 ferry boat.  Its corroded hull was now 72 years old.  The bill for the necessary repairs was $1.5 million.  The Streckfuss organization decided to cease operating the mighty SS Admiral.  In doing so, Streckfuss Steamers killed a unique, multi-generational St. Louis tradition. 

FOR THE BIRDS

Pittsburgh businessman John E. Connelly bought the Admiral for $600,000 in 1981. He did some repair work and removed the engines, wanting to make it a Pittsburgh attraction.  That did not pan out.  He soon sold it to a group of St. Louis investors, SS Admiral Partners, for $1.5 million. When the boat returned to the St. Louis riverfront around 1986, its condition was shocking.  Huge swaths of silver paint were gone, and it had a beat-up look to it.  The Six Flags Admiral Corp. partnered with the SS Admiral Partners and invested a total of $31 million for converting the boat to a stationary, floating amusement attraction on the St. Louis riverfront opening in 1987. It had an animated bird theater, restaurants, bars and music venues.  Patrons had to pay to board the boat, then pay more for the attractions.  It was a losing arrangement and went out of business around 1990.

SNAKE EYES

In 1993, the Admiral was converted into a floating gambling attraction called the President Casino on Laclede’s Landing.  All the1930s-40s Art Deco elegance Mazie Krebs had designed into the SS Admiral was destroyed, replaced with a gaudy, casino interior.  It held 1,230 slot machines, 59 gaming tables and one restaurant.  This arrangement was successful for almost a decade.  (I was on the casino once, brimming with nostalgia, but found only an unrecognizable interior.)  The boat was having somewhat of a good run as a gambling joint until April 4, 1998. The towboat Anne Holly hit the Missouri-side pier of the Eads Bridge’s center pier, breaking loose eight of its barges, of which three hit the Admiral.  The Admiral rotated downstream on the river until the Anne Holly caught it and, with Admiral’s one remaining stern anchor, held it near the Missouri bank of the Mississippi.  16 passenger injuries required hospitalization.  It took many hours to evacuate about 2,500 people from the vessel.  Damage was estimated to be $11 million.  Repairs were made, but the President Casino Co. went bankrupt in 2002.  It appears the onboard casino continued to stumble along.

Pinnacle Entertainment purchased the Admiral in 2006, then tried to sell it due to repair and maintenance costs.   The casino surprisingly lasted until 2010.  During that year, the Coast Guard was due to make its regular inspection of the boat.  Pinnacle declined the inspection and shut down the Admiral.  St. Louis Marine and Materials purchased the vessel—they did not have restoration in mind.

ART DECO SCRAP METAL

By July 19, 2011, the Admiral’s upper deck had been stripped off.  Note in the picture to the left, the pilot house is long gone.  On that day, the Admiral began a journey to Columbia, Il where her lower decks were gutted out.  The magnificent two-deck high ballroom was nothing but an empty cave, exposing the steel structure so perfectly constructed by Banner Iron Works, another St. Louis landmark now long gone.

The Admiral then was towed to Calvert City, KY where her remains were cut up for the scrap heap.  A great St. Louis summertime institution was ingloriously destroyed.  To my knowledge, nothing from the Admiral was salvaged for posterity.  At the History Museum in Forest Park, much memorabilia from the 1904 World’s Fair is on display.  It seems that something from the Admiral, which cruised the Mississippi for 39 years, should have been preserved and displayed at the Museum.  It is a huge exclusion of St. Louis history.

 DOES THIS MAKE “CENTS”?

The Admiral quit cruising in 1979.  John Connelly bought the boat for $600,000.  He sold it back to the SS Admiral Partners for $1.5 million.  Six Flags invested $31 million for its conversion of the Admiral to an of ill-conceived theme park.  I don’t know the costs for converting the Admiral into a casino—it had to be a big chunk of change.  Repair of the barge collision damage cost $11 million. Based on available figures, since 1979, a minimum of $42,150,600 was spent on various conversions and repairs to the Admiral.  (Remember, that doesn’t include the casino conversion bill.)  All these actions failed in the long run.  The original 1979 repair bill needed to fix the Admiral’s hull to pass the Coast Guard inspection was $1.5 million.  That means the SS Admiral could have been repaired and refloated at least 28 times.  I’ve “gotta” shake my head in profuse confusion over this obtuse reality.

REFLECTIONS ON THE ST. LOUIS RIVERFRONT

There was a time during the 1960s and early 1970s, in my personal experience, when the St. Louis Riverfront was a swinging place.  It was a class scene.  Sport coats, ties and nice dresses were the norm.  The age of the patrons varied between 18 to about 65.  There was rock and roll on the Admiral night cruises.  The other sites featured traditional, “Dixieland” jazz and ragtime; hot 1920s music.  Beyond the music, many of the riverfront establishments were very nice restaurants.  These boats were moored south of Eads Bridge, basically “at the foot of the Arch.”

What follows is a look at those unique places.

The Goldenrod Showboat, built in 1909 as an actual showboat, moored in St. Louis from 1937-1984.  The boat never had power of its own.  It had to be towed to a destination. The vessel featured live plays and later, farcical melodramas in the main theatre.  The bar\lounge was home to The St. Louis Ragtimers, specializing in ragtime and traditional jazz.  After playing on some of the earlier-mentioned steamboats and a stint in Gaslight Square at the Opera House, Singleton Palmer and his Dixieland Six also held forth on the Goldenrod.  The Ragtime Festival, an annual event, drew sellout crowds.  I was lucky enough to attend the event and it was a blast.  The Goldenrod was moved to St. Charles Riverfront in 1991.  It went through some ownership changes, which were not successful.  Around 2016, while moored on the Illinois River at Kampsville, IL, the Goldenrod’s keel broke in low water and  the boat was sold for scrap.  Another great St. Louis attraction lost.

The River Queen was built in1923 and moored at the St. Louis riverfront from 1964 to 1967.  The vessel had a good restaurant and jazz in an elegant atmosphere. The River Queen had a brief appearance in the movie Gone With the Wind.  Speaking of Gone With the Wind, a powerful storm with big winds hit St. Louis in 1967 and sank the River Queen. It was then scrapped

 

The Robert E. Lee was constructed in the mid-1960s and moored in St. Louis in 1970.  The boat was built as a stationary, floating restaurant and never had engines.  The Robert E. Lee was quite elegant, with a room featuring steaks on its 1^st deck.  The 2^nd deck had a good seafood menu.  The 1^st deck also had a nice, roomy saloon showcasing very good ragtime and jazz bands.  You could wait in the saloon for your table and grab a drink and some good jazz before eating.  Many people came just for the music in the saloon.  The bands included Jean Kittrell and Her Red Hot Peppers and a trio called The Tin Rainbow Ragtimers.  I had a lot of personal experience on the boat, and the food, music and atmosphere were terrific.  The Robert E. Lee closed in 1993 due to damage from the Great 1993 Flood.  It was repaired and had a few different operators and names, but was never the same as in its glory years.  A 2010 fire burnt it down to the waterline.

The Becky Thatcher, by the time it got to St. Louis, was a restaurant. The boat was built in 1926 and moored in St. Louis from 1968 to 1974.  The Becky Thatcher eventually left St. Louis.  In February 2010, the boat sank at its mooring on Neville Island in the Ohio River, just north of Pittsburgh. It was a total loss.

The Belle Angeline was built strictly as a floating restaurant on the St. Louis Riverfront in the late 1970s and 1980s.  It was another elegant addition to the riverfront.  I don’t recall music there, but the food was very good. It underwent some owner and name changes and was scrapped around 2012

Gunnar’s Palace Car Loungewas on a sideline railroad track by the Poplar Street Bridge on the riverfront from the mid-960s until it was destroyed by the Great Flood of 1993.  The Palace Car Lounge served up good food and drinks.  My Mom and Dad went there and really enjoyed the place.  It was a unique establishment.

The Old St. Louis Levee House, opening in 1967, was in Laclede’s Landing, facing the river just behind the elevated train tracks.  It was the only place open at the time in Laclede’s Landing.  Steaks and pizza were on the menu along with lots of beer.  The joint had a foot-stomping ragtime\Dixieland band. I was there a number of times.  The Old St. Louis Levee House was the destination on my first date with my future wife Bonnie.  On the way there, the radio program we were listening to was interrupted with a special bulletin—There was a multi-alarm fire on the riverfront, The Old St. Louis Levee House was engulfed in flames.  We ended up at Café Louie, also downtown.  Sometimes plans don’t work out.

Currently, the Tom Sawyer is the only remaining boat on the St. Louis riverfront.  It is a nice replica of a 19^th century riverboat and provides Mississippi River cruises and special event rental.  Passengers can purchase food and drink onboard and a park ranger often provides a cruise narrative.

There were multiple goals I hoped to achieve with this article.  Frist, a short narrative of the Mississippi River steamboats provides a broad overview.  Next, presenting the river boats leading up to the launching of the Admiral presents a necessary, developmental track and an introduction to Streckfus Steamers.  This leads us into the article’s main topic, the SS Admiral, a true St. Louis legend. Wrapping it all up, I wanted to describe the lively atmosphere of the St. Louis riverfront during the 1960s-70s, of which the Admiral was an integral part.  I hope those who were there, like myself, were able to enjoy some nice memories.  I would like to think that generations too young to experience the jumping, swing scene get a good flavor of what it was like—GREAT!

 

Sources:

Steamboating the Rivers - Steamboats.org

Built St. Louis | Crumbling Landmarks | The Admiral

https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Image/IM95899

Steamboat Museum

https://www.waterwaysjournal.net/

ST. LOUIS' PICTURES OF THE PAST  · 

Matt Chaney

https://bygonestlouis.blogspot.com/

https://www.losttables.com/

Goldenrod Showboat Floods, Sinking Longtime Efforts to Restore It | National Trust for Historic Preservation