Island Queen (Packet/excursion, 1923-1947)

BOAT DESCRIPTION: Sidewheel

BOAT TYPE: Packet/excursion

BUILT: 1923-1925, hull built by Midland Barge Company, Midland Pennsylvania; completed at Cincinnati by her owners, Coney Island Company

FINAL DISPOSITION: September 9, 1947, Pittsburgh, her fuel tanks exploded

OWNERS: 1923: John W. Hubbard; 1925: Coney Island Company

OFFICERS & CREW: Captain Charles N. Hall (master for a long period); Captain Harry Doss (pilot); Homer Denney (calliope); 1947: Captain Ernest Wagner (mate), Frank Dickow (chief engineer)

RIVERS: Mississippi River; Ohio River; Monongahela River

OTHER INFORMATION: Ways - 2800; The Island Queen was the largest steamboat on the Western rivers with a license to carry 4,100 passengers. She was called the "Big Liz". She was built of steel, fireproof, non-sinkable (thirty-six water-tight compartments), burned oil for fuel with no smoke or dirt and had the largest floor of any vessel in the world. During the season, she carried passengers to and from Coney Island; off season she tramped Pittsburgh to New Orleans. March 11, 1929 she was stranded on the shore at Coney Island on a rapidly falling river, but was released several weeks later when another rise in water came. October, 1929 en route to St. Louis she struck Paul Jones Rock, eight miles below St. Louis and had to be towed and docked at New Orleans. In 1941 she was taken to Dravo Marine Ways, Neville Island, Pennsylvania and given sponsons and other improvements increasing her width. On September 9, 1947 while moored at the Wood Street Wharf, Pittsburgh, in the Monongahela Rive

PHOTO DESCRIPTION: Fireboat at scene of explosion and fire on the Island Queen, September 9, 1947 at Pittsburgh