The Delta Queen
In 1957, Simonton took his family for a river trip aboard the Delta Queen, a 285-foot steamboat then operating on the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. Built in the 1920s, the Delta Queen had begun as a California riverboat operating between San Francisco and Sacramento. After Simonton's cruise, the owners of the Delta Queen found they could not keep the business going. Simonton had so enjoyed his trip aboard the boat that he saved the enterprise, buying a controlling interest in 1957-58. With partners including E. J. Quinby, he turned the enterprise around, and even added an 1897 steam calliope rescued from the sunken Island Queen. For many years the Delta Queen was operated only by obtaining special exemptions from a series of presidents, because U.S. law requires that boats of such a size be made of steel rather than of wood. The Delta Queen was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1970. President Carter campaigned from the Delta Queen and was on it in 1979 on the day that Simonton died.
Read more about this topic: Richard Simonton
Famous quotes containing the word queen:
“And thus Snow White became the prince’s bride.
The wicked queen was invited to the wedding feast
and when she arrived there were
red-hot iron shoes,
in the manner of red-hot roller skates,
clamped upon her feet.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)