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Route 66 Points of Interest in Missouri
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SS Admiral - St. Louis, Missouri
by Carolyn Hasenfratz
On the St. Louis riverfront, moored just north of the Eads Bridge, is a floating casino called the President Casino on the Admiral. The SS Admiral was once a magnificent Art Deco excursion boat that cruised the Mississippi at St. Louis from 1940 to 1979.
The hull of the Admiral once belonged to a side-wheel steamboat called the SS Albatross, built in 1907. The Albatross was built in Iowa and used to haul railroad cars at Vicksburg, Mississippi. Streckfus Steamers bought the ship in 1937, and gave it a completely new appearance, new function, and a new name. The designer was Maizie Krebs, a fashion illustrator for Famous-Barr department stores. It was converted from steam to Diesel in the 1970s. In it's heyday, the Admiral was the largest river cruise ship in the world. It could carry 4,400 passengers.
I was fortunate to be one of those passengers as a child in the 1970's. The Art Deco design was not appreciated enough by me then, but I was always impressed and thrilled it's sheer size, the river, the calliope that played as we pulled away from the dock, the air-conditioned ballroom, and the game room, with pre-video game amusements, on the lowest deck.
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Postcard image of the SS Admiral.
Courtesy Joe Sonderman
SS Admiral at the St. Louis riverfront before the old buildings were cleared for the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial.
Missouri State Archives. Courtesy Joe Sonderman
High waters brought the accumulation of driftwood seen in this picture. Grass was starting to grow on some of it!
Copyright © 2009 by Carolyn Hasenfratz
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I and most other St. Louisans were pained when the Admiral was declared unsafe in 1979 and stopped cruising. The engines were removed and it was remodeled into an stationary entertainment center in the 1980s, which was a financial failure. I remember well the debates in the early 1990s about whether to legalize riverboat gambling. The measure was sold as a way to save the Admiral, and I voted yes hoping that would be the result. Gambling is now allowed on land as well, after years of casinos trying to see what they could get away with by building weird structures known as "boats in moats". The Admiral in it's current incarnation is still holding on as a casino, but there are ominous rumblings about how long that will be the case.
The Admiral almost made history again in the late 1990s, though it would not have been in a good way. It was struck by three renegade barges that had broken free when a towboat with 14 barges struck the Eads bridge. The Admiral came loose from it's moorings and was caught by the towboat which prevented it from being swept downstream. If it had, one of the worst river disasters of all time might have occurred - the water was high and with no engines the ship would have been helpless in the swift current. Fortunately the approximately 2,500 passengers were saved, though there were injuries.
For more information see these web sites:
Bygone Days Aboard the Mississippi Riverboat, S.S. Admiral, St. Louis, Missouri
Riverboat / Barge Accident, St. Louis 4 April 1998
Look Back: The Admiral's Heyday
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