All Aboard!

Life on the river hearkens back to an earlier time on the majestic America Queen

by J.T. C RAWFORD

IT’S A STILL MORNING ON THE OHIO RIVER JUST northwest of Paducah. A fog that had hovered just a few feet above the water’s glassy top yawns and slowly stretches its way into the blue sky above, raising the curtain on a lazy, southern day on this ancient stage. Around a bend and through the dissipating mist emerges a stately figure of a ship. It is a ghost of 1800s Americana, a riverboat via the memory of Mark Twain. At the stern, a mighty red wood paddlewheel. Near the front, imposing stacks. With puffs of steam, a calliope begins to play a bygone tune, issuing a wake-up hymn for the city. This is the arrival of the American Queen, a regular visitor to the shore of Paducah. Aboard are upwards of 417 river explorers, all eager to see what our city has to offer. On shore are welcoming Paducahans who revel at the sight of incoming riverboats.

Four different riverboats from two cruise lines make Paducah a stop along their sojourns on the inland waterways. Among them is the grand American Queen. In spite of its antique appearance, the ship isn’t that old. Built in 1995, the American Queen was crafted to be the grandest steam paddlewheel in the world. But it ceased to explore the inland rivers only about a decade after its launch. This was something John Waggoner found unacceptable.

John’s love for the waterways goes back to his sixthgrade year when he started working on a sport fishing boat. From there, he obtained a captain’s license, working on sport and commercial fishing vessels, oil boats, dinner cruise boats, and the opening of five riverboat casinos in Indiana. He also founded a ferry business via his company HMS Global Maritime. “In about 2009, as we kept growing, I turned toward my interest in the overnight cruise business,” says John, CEO at American Queen Steamboat Company. “The owners of the American Queen had become insolvent, and because it was built with a Title XI loan guarantee, they gave it back to the Federal Government. They put it in Beaumont, Texas, and it just sat there. As a mariner, I was shocked. Now I had been on the American Queen the first year it was built. I thought it was the coolest boat ever and a national treasure. And there it was collecting mold and dirt.”

John decided to buy the American Queen. It took about a year to strike a deal with the Maritime Administration and then another year to raise the financing. He then invested $9 million in renovations before launching it in 2012. “At the time, we were the only boat on the river. Now, just from our own company, we’ve added the American Duchess, the American Empress, two boats on the Great Lakes, and in May we’ll christen the American Countess—and in 2021, we’ll launch a new boat in Alaska. We’ll go from zero to eight boats in ten years. It’s kind of unprecedented.”

None are as grand and unique as John’s first vessel, the American Queen. “It is the largest, most opulent paddlewheel steamboat built in the entire world,” says John. “It’s in the Guinness Book of World Records. And it is a real, paddlewheel steamboat with a real boiler and steam engines.” Even though the vessel itself dates to 1995, the engines were manufactured around 1932 and first saw life aboard the Kennedy, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ dredge. The Kennedy was decommissioned in 1984.

“We have a theater aboard that is a replica of Ford’s Theatre,” adds John, “where we host Broadway-caliber entertainment. The J.M. White dining room is patterned after that of the J.M. White, one of the most opulent steamboats that ever cruised the Mississippi. There’s the front porch of America where you can sit and rock. But really, the reason I am drawn to it is because it is the real deal. It has a total Mark Twain, Mississippi River quality. It just fits so well into a waterfront. Paducah is a great example. You pull the American Queen in there, everyone drives down.”

Additionally, the American Queen offers coaches for guests to disembark and explore the cities where they dock. When the vessel arrives in Paducah, passengers can pick up a Paducah excursion map that shows them where they can traverse on an American Queen coach. Hop-on, hop-off points include the National Quilt Museum, Paducah Beer Werks, The Moonshine Company, Lower Town Arts District, the Lloyd Tilghman House, the Paducah Railroad Museum, The River Discovery Center, and downtown. A premium excursion also includes a guided tour of the Hotel Metropolitan.

John says these kinds of qualities are what continue to draw people back to the rivers and back to excursions on boats like the American Queen. 23% of guests at any given time are repeat customers. And John loves it so much, you’ll sometimes find him aboard. John headquartered the American Queen Steamboat Company in Louisville where he can hop on himself. “There’s nothing like it. It’s the only real paddlewheel steamboat out there. People who want the real deal are drawn to it. It is a floating time capsule. You sit on that porch and imagine the days of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. It is Americana at its finest.”

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