DQ history

John,
I haven't seen it either, but practicality says they were painted, to help preserve the wood. Most likely white lead. The paddle wheel was just considered a practical form of proplulsion; the cover kept the noise and splash down and pretty much hid the wheel.
S'
David D.

Seems to me as if Jerry Sutphin's video celebrating the DQ's 75th anniversary has some colour (Sorry about that spelling. I just got off the QE2's spring transatlantic crossing) video of either the DQ's or DK's wheel. You might get a glimpse of the wheel's color, (Now, that looks right.) if you take another look at that video.

One of Dad's favourite (Did it again.) stories was the one of two lady passengers on the GORDON C. GREENE admiring her newly painted wheel. They expressed their admiration of its beauty to the Chief Engineer Frank Heath. His response was that they were correct about its beauty and that he had been after Tom Greene to build a cover over it for some time because it gets wet when it rains.

Hi, John, David, Frank & gang:
Good question from John Fryant with comments from David Dewey asking if the DELTA QUEEN's covered wheel was painted in early days in California. I too looked in Capt. Fred Way's and Stan Garvey's books but the B/W photos don't reveal much. In some shots it appears the wheel metal bands/rims etc. were painted. They could have used a darker paint or none at all. Judy Patsch may have better wheel shots in her collection. Yet, again, I looked and in some pics the wheel looks like 'raw wood.' Wood in California and the Pacific Northwest was readily available then but old Capt. Anderson of the C.T. Co. was a miser when it came to ANY expenses for wood used on his boats, docks, floors of terminals. 'Practicality,' as David says, makes sense yet...

In California days both DK/DQ were on a tight schedule daily with little down time running between the ports and doing the daily 'huckster' trade on San Francisco Bay picking up/delivering freight. John Burns, old Jim's son, and I discussed a zillion things some 18 years ago but it never came to my mind to ask him about the wheel painting issue. I could contact Stan Garvey out in Menlo Park, Calif. Stan is computer savvy but not up to or linked for E=Mailing. If the U.S. Navy put any of the ABs to work painting the wheel I've never heard. If Mr. Fanning out in California is still living he may know as he was aboard the DQ for some time.

Frank, when we discussed 'wheel painting' on the web several years ago didn't you mention your dad reporting that on the last ISLAND QUEEN they did not paint her sidewheels?

There's an old story here in Cincinnati about a boat having its wheel painted at the Public Landing. An unfortunate crew member painting in the wheel fell in the river. He was quickly fished out with much relief. The captain rushed to the scene and asked the man how he was adding, "Well, there went a full bucket of paint." I accidentally dropped a half bucket of aluminum paint in the river once and was horrified to see how it spread out on the surface for a couple of hundred feet. Any guesses how I/we hid the mess?

Cheers,
R. Dale Flick

Don't know if this b&w helps or not, but it looks painted to me. Or else they used a very dark, even-colored wood...

Geezz Judy, how big is your house? Where do you store all these fantastically cool pictures? And where, on God's green earth, did you find THIS stuff? And the thing that gets me is you found this picture in your "piles" with a relatively quick search...

Amazing, AMAZING...the DK in dry dock...[as Bruno walks away, shaking his head, talking to himself...].

I thought I was the Google, Altavista and Dogpile Delta Queen Image and Video Search champ, but I've never seen nothing like that...

Bruno, Aunt Judy has it down pat...no question about it...

I would have to believe that the paddlewheel had to be painted with something, as seeing as they were in salt or brackish waters half the time...

For whatever little it's worth the Wheels of the Str Admiral and Str President were NOT painted. Raw wood Wheel Arms and Raw Wood Bucket Planks, etc.

Judy, Thats a great photo. I'd say the wheel was entirely painted one solid color. Looking at the shade of the striping on the wheel cover it appeears as if that color and the wheel color could have been the same. I'm guessing on a shade of red. And Jim Blum's comments about the wheels of the Admiral and President confirms my belief that the wheels of side wheelers were NEVER painted at all. It would have been just too difficult to get to all of those parts. Can you imagine a poor crew member having to crawl around inside a dark wheel house trying to paint all that wood!!

I type in "www.catpile.com" to find stuff... actually, my cats don't get up here to further mess up the 'collection'. I do keep the Streckfus and Greene Line photos and postcards organized, but that's about it. That shot came from a DQ 8x10 album and there is no notation on the back, so I'm guessing its one I bought from Ralph DuPae. I have several from that drydocking session. From my chair here I count 39 albums full of 8x10 boat photos, and 2 file drawers of unfiled 8x10s... the real secret to finding stuff here: dumb luck! Whenever anyone gets in the area and would like to guffaw at my river room..floor...house...yard...garage, just give me enough warning to shovel a path. I love having visitors, and that's the only way to get the full effect. This is the exact opposite of Keith's neat and organized River Room, although he now has some unsorted annexed rooms too...

According to Captain Jim Howard sidewheel paddlewheels' wood parts were RARELY painted. Metal parts got red lead and wood was left unpainted.

For what it's worth. I was down at the Texas A&M marine archeology conservation lab last Fri. looking at the recovered items from HEROINE. While there is still paint on the section of guard that they salvaged (black rails and rub rail, red deck) there was no indication of paint on any of the wheel parts or shafts, even those that had remained buried along the port side. They did not find any traces of paint on the hull either. (Fascinating visit- they were working not only on HEROINE, but on artifacts from La Salle's ship LA BELLE and the CSS ALABAMA.)