Topic starter
19/12/2008 2:27 am
Yes, friends, its deal time again. Friday December 19 is the day when the Lt. Robert E. Lee restaurant will be sold at auction in St. Louis. Click here to read about the pending sale. And, if you would like to see the auction site, click here. You can even place a bid via the Internet, should you not be able to make it to town for the auction.
Now, on a serious note, I really wish that this boat would go to a good home. I enjoyed dining aboard the boat. I went even when I knew that the Kimmswick idea was dumb and it would eventually fail.
19/12/2008 1:39 pm
Thanks, Darin, for the reminder. There was a large ad in The Waterways Journal a few weeks ago about the auction, featuring color photos of the LT. ROBERT E. LEE, which was built on the hull of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers snagboat CHARLES H. WEST. The LEE opened at St. Louis in 1970 and was under the ownership of Fred H. Leyhe, son of Capt. Buck, and operator of Eagle Marine Industries. The LEE was always a great place to eat and the last time I had dinner on her, we were "treated" to a runaway barge that broke loose from a fleet above the Eads Bridge, came down through the harbor and was caught by a towboat just in front of the Gateway Arch.
Here's hoping the LEE finds a good home! Wish she was coming to Louisville, as we have no riverboat restaurants. In the mid 1980's Ben Bernstein bought the Str. WAKEROBIN with plans to use her as a restaurant at Jeffersonville, but he passed away, the plans fell through and the boat degenerated into a haunted attraction, sank and was scrapped a few years ago.
Please keep us posted as to the outcome of the auction!
19/12/2008 1:56 pm
Darin, how about you shout this info out to all those people who just ask me, Why doesn't the DQ just run as a restaurant, or a hotel, or a museum?? They don't do enough business to support the vessel, for the most part, and most of them sink (wow, loads of local evidence on that one!) because they are not watched adequately. Why don't you and the other folks in the St.L area write a letter to the editor about this? See, this is why we still need you to help us save the Delta Queen----
20/12/2008 5:52 pm
Lt. Robert E. Lee sold
12/19/2008 - Robert E. Lee boat sells for $200k at auction - STLtoday.com
Thanks to John Carroll for sending this story - a measly $200,000? Why, most everyone on this board could've bid on it!!! Here's hoping it has a future in St. Louis, but as has been posted previously, there are a couple of major disadvantages now. First of all, there is NOTHING on the St. Louis levee besides the 2 small excursion boats and their landing barge/office. Secondly, the vast forest on the Arch grounds effectively separates the river from downtown. You have to be several floors high in a hotel to see over the trees and realize that the Mississippi River is there nearby. In the early days of the LEE, the riverfront was part of the downtown/Arch complex and had many attractions which provided a reason to go down to the levee. If they try to put the LEE back on the levee, and it doesn't specify that particularly in this article, it will have to be its own drawing power. Darin or other St. Louisans, are they still charging to park on the cobblestone levee? That would of course be strike three...
20/12/2008 8:32 pm
Pay to park during the Tourist Season, which is to the parking contractor a pretty long "season". Free parking right now!
21/12/2008 12:13 am
Check This Chinchilla
Lost that one, but check this Chinchilla ...
A sternwheeler! Looks like it's located in St. Paul. Any of our Upper River crew know anything about the ELENA?
PS: eBay's full of interesting stuff under "Delta Queen". Must be Christmas.
21/12/2008 1:23 am
I think it's located at Wilmington, NC, on the Cape Fear River. At least that's where it was the last time it appeared on ebay.