Preservation Magazine
January 14, 2008
This could be the last year that the 1926 Delta Queen, the country's last overnight paddle-wheel steamboat, will operate on America's rivers, thanks to the U.S. Congress.
Last July, for the first time in 37 years, Congress rejected Seattle-based owner Majestic America Line's request to waive the vessel from the Safety of Life at Sea Act, which restricts overnight guests to 50 rather than the boat's capacity of 164. It would have been the boat's seventh exemption from the 1966 act.
Now Congressman Steve Chabot (R-Ohio) is proposing a bill that would exempt the 285-foot-long boat, docked in New Orleans, from the act and keep it on the water for another 10 years.
Read the full story by Margaret Foster in Preservation Magazine
