DELTA QUEEN TRIVIA win the Snickers bar

Could it have been in the Barber Shop which is now the gift shop?

Well, there was a standup bar on the port side, forward of today's Purser's Office, between the two sets of doors. It was inside the Smoking Room on the bow of the Cabin Deck - you all have probably seen pix of the doors across the bow, forward of the grand staircase. Richard Simonton showed me the framework still in the ceiling, so I'm guessing the hootch was stored in the Purser's Office, if there wasn't a place in the bar itself???

Ole Betty Blake

By the way, in order to get out a copy of Saga to look for DQ storage areas, I had to move my bottle of Ole Betty Blake 90 proof Kentucky Straight Bourbon whiskey... does anyone else have one of those? It was distilled exclusively for BB Riverboats in 1980...

Sorry...both guesses so far are good ones but no snickers yet. The secret room was still there when I was purser in 1967, I don't know if it still there today but I rather doubt it.

Ok, one more wild guess - how about the 'linen' room, which was on the starboard side near the stern??? Could they have consumed it there, which is now the Betty Blake Lounge, and if danger lurked, they could dump it into the nearby public lavatories???

The California Smoking Lounge

I was wrong in my guess where the booze was stored, but here are some pix anyway of the Smoking Lounge setup which I mentioned.
1) Note the wooden bulkhead beyond the Grand Staircase and the leaded glass door into the Smoking Lounge.
2) Looking forward from the Dining Room, now the Betty Blake Lounge.
3) 1997 setup, looking aft to the Gift Shop. Note the archway where the lounge doors had been.

Judy, your 1997 picture...oh, my...

The "walls", now stripped of paint...especially the side walls of the grand staircase. But the outside walls to deck are a bit disturbing to the eye, too.
The carpeting on the floor...The funky, non-crystal light fixtures...
The furniture, now more "grandma-ish" and less "50's-ish", though the individual chairs and tables are the same, new fabric?

Great picture...love the drapes!

OOPS...

Sorry I didn't proofread it, Bruno. That Forward Cabin Lounge shot is from 1979, not 97.... Dyslexic Digits...

Rear Wall Texas lounge along side of stair case.

Snickers Bar? Who wants it? How about a bottle of Ole Betty?

Good guess, close but no Snickers

Steamboating colleagues:
Great discussion RE: 'hooch' carried and stored on the DELTA QUEEN. One 'guess' I have is the small cupboard midship as you stepped back to the aft cabin lounge. Seems in later years that little storage area held mops, cleaning materials, floor buffer and, possibly, a white porcelain deep utility sink. *Earliest plans from DRAVO for the 1947 renovation show space with center bar, stools with eight wall seats on the port side aft of cabins 'A,' B','C.' A door opened from the cabin corridor inside with an outside door to the deck.

Plans were altered with the boat and by late 1950s/1960 the bar room had been converted to 'Souvenirs & Sundries' with the cocktail lounge now being moved down aft of the dining room below. The 'Hostess Office' occupied the space now where the concession stand/shop is across from the Purser's Office. Judy, Pete and others nailed it RE: cabins opening directly outside on the Cabin Deck beside the aft 'Skid Row' rooms. Those small outside ones on that deck were: 103, 115 {I occupied this one for ten days 48 years ago}, 121; on the starboard side were: 116. 122. They were fitted with upper/lower berths, single sink, little wood stool and the traditional white porcelain 'chamber pot' under the lower berth. You went outside, around and inside to the shower and lavatory for men on the starboard side and nobody thought a thing about it.

Stan Garvey & John Burns [Son of 'old' Jim Burns] discussed the 'booze issue' while staying here at our home years back. Stan worked it in the text of his 'KING & QUEEN of the River' book. During Prohibition booze was 'aplenty on the boats brought on by passengers in luggage and at times those leather mini-bar carrying cases containing booze, shaker, shot glass, some mixer, silver stir spoon etc. The company wouldn't, according to John Burns, run the risk of actually serving booze. People being people, they'll find a way to spirit [No pun intended] what they needed for the party crowd at night in the aft cabin. In spite of Prohibition a number of the 'Rum kings' made big money--one locally here in Cincinnati reaped the equivalent of $2 billion dollars in 2008 value.

Fine B/W photos taken just as the boats were finished at the yards show the aft cabin decorated with fine wicker setees, chairs and the famous upright piano. Doors entering the cabin from forward were hung with those 'portier' drapes on brass rods. The cabin then had that certain 1920s Rudolph Valentino look down to potted plants/palms here and there. Men and women 'dressed' in those days with the 'flapper' look along with jackets, hats and high collars for the men. Hats were expected to be worn on the decks. Well, what do I know?

Coal Haven Landing, Ohio River

The Answer

Look at the picture at cabin #206, see that little room under the E & C of "booze closet" (I wrote that in). Legend had it that room was designed to carry illeagal hootch or so said the crew back in the 50's. Back then room 206 was assigned as a crew room and given to the hostess...it had an obstructed veiw due to the stairway to the sun deck. The hostess used the "booze closet" as a clothes closet. There was a small doorway from cabin 206 into the closet.
Is it a true story or an uban legend? All I can say is the room was there, it was designed into the boat, and it was well hidden.
But what do I know?

Back in the '20's that area between the cabins was a sort of tunnel the whole length of the cabins with a larger area that admitted light to the skylights that were in the cabin, a sort of light well. I do not know if the "tunnel" was accessible, but it would have made a good hiding place. That blank area might have originally been the light well, so they could not have hidden booze in there in the "20's. I'll go with the tunnel, which was actually a part of the Sun Deck, I think. Don't have time to dig out old plans of the DQ. Wish I had some of that Ole Betty.

Lexie, Jim & steamboat colleagues:
Fascinating data on the 'booze room,' and the 'tunnel.' I hope the passengers back then in those adjoining cabins were understanding types--or passengers deliberately booked in thos cabins--with the cache of liquor. Getting to the precious liquids meant, possibly, being inconveinced.

During Prohibition it was known Capt. Anderson of the C.T. Co. was against such actions but possibly could have turned a blind eye. Remember, once away from the docks the boats were outside of federal jurisdiction. The gov'ment men and Revenue officers could do checks while docked. How thorough could that have been? Booze flowed 'aplenty back then into the port of San Francisco and down from Canada. 'Home brew' stirred up in home bath tubs, sinks etc. was a common staple of the period. Wines could be done privately by people at home. Crystal clear 'moonshine' was common and not bad if you were careful where it came from. I remembered 'moonshine' in my Navy/Marine Corps days in sealed glass BALL BROS. glass jars and it had a real kick. A little went a long way. A bottle of that Betty Blake booze is resting quietly here in the wet bar never to be opened or savored. Well, what do I know?

Coal Haven Landing, Ohio River.

California deck plans

From Saga, here are the deckplans and hopefully, Lexie, you can see the 'skylight' designation in that middle area.

Judy-
I would love to have copies of those plans. Is there any way you can email me a copy with enough resolution that I can blow them up and actually read them?

Deck plans

Those deck plans are pp. 26-27 of Saga of the Delta Queen by Capt. Fred Way Jr.. That would be the best place to look, as I don't know how to do the resolution business. If you don't have a copy already, they are often on Ebay.

What a mystery...You are right the area between those rooms was marked "sky light" which got me to speculating that perhaps those drawings were not of how the boat was built but how it was designed. Sometimes there was a big difference. I never heard of a third skylight, one in the dinning room. I don't think Fred Way in his Saga ever mentioned it. He did speak of two located back in the lounge. I won't refute the drawings though. Also if you look at the plans from the Saga and the layout I got from a 1958 brochure the beds are in a different location. In the Saga drawings they were in the back of the room, in 1958 they had been moved to the side wall, why?
Perhaps Dale could help me out. I am beginning to believe that I was the victim of "what we told the passengers".

Border of Skylights in drawing

Jim, after looking at these plans in the book with a magnifying glass, the two skylights in the stern are drawn with broken lines, while the outline of this forward sky light is solid. I know nothing about architects' drawings. Alan, does the different kind of line mean anything?

I had a bottle of Ole Betty Blake, managed to keep it for a couple of years and then I drank it on the day of Betty's funeral. It was a wonderful way to toast that amazing woman as she steamed off to the big steamboat in the sky.

Judy,
in orthographic drafting broken lines mean an edge out of sight. In the instance of the DQ drawings they probably mark an outline above the drawing. A skylight would be indicated thus. They could also mark something BELOW the deck, but in this instance probably not.

RE: DELTA QUEEN's 'glass domes/skylights etc.'
Steamboating colleagues:
Judy, Jim and others have piqued our curiosity on the stained glass 'domed' skylights on the DELTA QUEEN either as No. I, No. 2 or No. 3. Basic California specifications mention "two domes skylights." Again, as Jim says, nothing was in stone with the plans with alterations being added and deleted. It happens in boat/ship design to construction as Alan Bates can well testify. I looked and Capt. Fred Way's text mentiones "two skylights." Some of you may have more detailed old photos of the DQ in California and when she first arrived here. *Look on Pg. 57 of
Fred Way's 'The Saga of the DELTA QUEEN' and you'll see what are, perhaps, the roof housings for three said skylights. Ah, but then look on Pgs. 82 & 83 showing the DQ "aground in a mud flat." Again on Pg. 108 is a clear view of a light housing/dome just aft of the freshly painted stack with the 'G' logo at DRAVO, There are the domes [Pgs. 82/83] plus a high light midships [Mounted by the U.S. Navy?]. Fred wrote/spoke for years that the "two glass domes" irked Capt. Tom Greene and he had them removed.

Now, 'could' the light well over the former dining room have not been a dome but instead a flat ceiling fixture with some kind of glass? Hard to say what the U.S. Navy may have altered. Heck, I don't know. It 'takes a village' with intensive steamboat 'forensics.'

I do know that the one stained glass dome was removed and remained--possibly still--at the FULTON SHIPYARDS in Antioch, Calif. where it was last purported to be used as a kind of 'hot house' for plants against another building. Again, another mystery. Then again, the other similar dome removed is reputed to be in private hands across the Ohio River here in northern Kentucky. Will the owner of this glass skylight please stand up and take a bow? Well, what do I know?

Coal Haven Landing, Ohio River.

Some years ago there were several stained glass windows for sale in a Louisville, KY antique store reputed to have been from the Delta King. My observation of them was NO WAY. I have no idea of the disposition of those windows---neither do I have any pictures of them.

The glass in the Louisville, KY windows , in my humble opinion, bore no resemblance to the original DK/DQ glass as in the Green House in Antioch, CA., or the upper sash in the forward cabin lounge of the DQ.