Island Queen on Shorpy

*ISLAND QUEEN/CITY OF CINCINNATI*
Steamboating colleagues,
Jim Herron's posting of the ISLAND QUEEN, CITY OF CINCINNATI from the 'Shorpy' web brightened an otherwise dark, rainy morning here in Ragtown. Those Shorpy photos classics that have been re-worked, digitized. The year 1906 is on the money as the itinerant photographer was 'thought' to have been in Cincinnati from Detroit. That 'pitcher man' had a keen eye for light, mood, time and place in snapping the images. These two images what steamboating was/is all about. S&D REFLECTOR editor David Tschiggfrie has found a number of the Shorpy photos now outside former copyright laws and even available from the Library of Congress. Yet 'public doman' of photo images can be a problem at times.

WAY'S PACKET DIRECTORY gives the 1896 built ISLAND QUEEN a pretty good blow on Pgs. 227/228, Entry No. 2799. Fred Way gave the IQ viewed here further coverage over the years in his S&D REFLECTOR. She's pictured here just off the Cincinnati public Landing heading up to Coney with Covington, KY across showing mouth of the Licking River, now Riverside Drive. Roof of ole' Commodore Fred Laidley's mansion is just visible. The Ohio River was low, really low, in those days. It's high summer and everybody on the IQ dressed fit to kill for a day at the park, or even possibly a fraternal charter group. 'Cap n' Walnut no doubt could give further insights on the spires, pinnacles, roofs, chimneys of the buildings on the Kentucky side.

Fred Way commented on the figure of the lady painted on the wheelhouse but I can't recall his opinions now. Some thought the lady was purely allegorical; others that she was the 'queen' of the island. A few even thought she represented Miss Rosa Brooks, daugther of Lee H. Brooks, who headed Coney Island in those years. Jane Greene and I attended Withrow High School here with classmate Mike Brooks, member of the Coney Island Brooks family. Mike never could recall who the lady on the boat was.

The name Coney Island itslef has always been something of a mystery with many antecedents. 'Coney' an English corruption of the Dutch word for 'conyne' for 'bunny' or rabbit--thus 'rabbit island.' Others claim a Gaelic link also to 'coinin.' Long ago children were warned when naughty, "Don't let the coneys get you." I never knew then--or now--what those 'coneys' were my grandparents used to threaten me with. Also a possible link to an island in the Italian lake district once a pleasure garden called 'Coni.' We could go on and on, but won't. Well, what do I know?

R. Dale Flick
Coal Haven Landing, Ohio River, Cincinnati

Segregation of sexes?

With only a few exceptions it appears that the sexes had their own decks - was this by choice or otherwise? I don't see any men under cover on the second deck bow. There are a few women interspersed with the men on the next two decks, but up on the roof are only men. I don't recall seeing this separation in other photos...

It could very well be by choice. We had a party a couple of weeks ago, and commented then how the men went one way and the women the other. Some things never change...

*Women on one deck, men on the other*
Steamboating colleagues,
Judy's keen eyes got me to thinking along with Bob's next posting. The ISLAND QUEEN of 1906 'could' have been on a regularly scheduled run to Coney Island. Again, everybody dressed to the 9ns with dark suits, shirts, ties, hats, long dresses with Gibson Girl head wear, parasols. Was it a regular excursion or, possibly, a charter or semi-charter with a group mixed in? Sundays were big days for the boats with many churches on an outing. Ladies then shunned the bright sun to avoid tans or sun burns. The men 'could' have moved together to talk or have a smoke. Who knows? One interesting question. The first big DELTA QUEEN/BELLE OF LOUISVILLE races were as I recall marked by everybody dressed very well. That's the way it was then. As a little kid on the last ISLAND QUEEN, I remember my mother and other ladies being also better dressed even if we were going swimming later in Coney's big SUNLITE pool. Mother had a kind of beach bag along with a wicker hamper with sandwiches, fruit, sweets, thermos bottles to eat on the deck seated on the boat's green painted benches or later at the park. There was dancing going both ways. Bill Judd, Tom Schiffer and others may recall seeing senior older men on the ISLAND QUEEN II still wearing round straw hats in the summer. Perhaps that may help explain it. I'll not even go there on the 'racial' segregation of the day. Cheers!

R. Dale Flick
Coal Haven Landing, Ohio River, Cincinnati

Dale et al: I think that I may have posted on here before that we kids, my older brother Phil and I, had strict instructions upon boarding to race up to the mezzenine above the dance floor and reserve two rockers for mother and grandma...her mother. After which we were "free" to go about the boat and we wore the steps out! I was seven and Phil twelve when the sad news of her demise came to town. Cap'n Walnut

Over the years there were different paintings on the ISLAND QUEEN's wheelhouses. They varied from a young lady in a yawl to a stylish beauty queen in her wasp waist dress.

The "first" ISLAND QUEEN was built at the Cincinnati Marine Railway Co around the same time that the QUEEN CITY was built and after the VIRGINIA. Sharp eyed viewers will note the beautifully carved "dolphin" rising above her stem. Both the QUEEN CITY and the VIRGINIA started off with the same decoration.

*'Dolphin carving/Where's the IQ's calliope?*
Steamboating colleagues:
Cap n' Walnut's memories of those rocking chairs on the ISLAND QUEEN II on the mark. Our family knew the Hall boys who worked on the last IQ. Dad took me down to the engine spaces where the big cranks were rolling over and over. At the time I vividly recall seeing the faces of clowns painted on the cranks that seemed to go from a smile to a frown. Later I've asked much older river veterans about the ellusive painted clowns and they draw a blank. Virginia Bennett said they could possibly have been painted on just for one season. Helen Prater also recalled something about those clowns.

Frank also has drawn our attention to the elaborate stem carving of the classic dolphin al la QUEEN CITY, VIRGINIA. The wood 'joiners,' carvers, carpenters at the old Cincinnati Marine Railway Co. on Cincinnati's Eastern Ave at present Rookwood Crossing were some of the most highly skilled craftsmen of all. Many German families with such skill lived, worked for the yards from Fulton on east. Also an enclave of Scotch-Irish. Present St. Rose Catholic Church was home parish to many and their carvings inside the church, though many now painted over, have that decided 'steamboat look' as do a few surviving residences nearby. Until several years ago there was a fine old home directly across from the former yard site with beautiful carved window, door pediments and moldings done by steamboat craftsman. The house was in dismal condition with a FOR SALE sign up a number of years. I'd stopped to look the wood carvings over more than once. Alas, the home was taken off the market and abruptly dozed down and burned on the sight. I drove by later after returning from the long summer in Michigan and nearly died. Oh, that those carvings could have been salvaged. The former front portico door had been made of fine dark walnut.

*The real question here is where is the ISLAND QUEEN's calliope? I've looked long and hard but not sure. Just behind the stacks up front there possibly appears 'something' looking like calliope whistles; yet they could be backs of bences or chairs. So, take a long look and have a 'Go' if you can spot the calliope. My eyes now with bifocals often miss things. Cheers!

R. Dale Flick
Coal Haven Landing, Ohio River, Cincinnati

IQ Calliopes

Dale, you are "on the mark" that the calliope aboard the first ISLAND QUEEN was between the stacks. On the second IQ, her calliope was just behind the pilothouse.

*Calliope on ISLAND QUEEN No. 2*
Hi, Keith,
Thanks for posting the picture of the calliope just aft of the pilothouse on ISLAND QUEEN No. 2. Yes, just as I remembered it after all these years. That was a LONG time ago. I also remembered the metal railing around but the fire buckets something new to me. Some feet back on the deck were long wood slatted benches painted a kind of deep, dark green.

Homer Denney could make that calliope sing and what a voice it spoke with. A real monster and the sound scared me being up that close. People did stand at or near the railing listening, watching Homer; other stood back, way back. Homer, as I recall, wore black trousers, white shirt, black tie, cap on his head. I vaguely recall the Hall boys down in the engine spaces wearing, possibly, Khaki slacks, long sleeved shirts. Mable Dignan, our neighbor, worked on the boat in concession and just missed the big explosion in Pittsburgh being shopping up in town.

Cap n' Walnut recalled the rocking chairs on the mezzanine around the huge dance floor. Again, I don't ever remember eating or drinking any items from the boat's food counters as mother carried all aboard on those trips. Passengers could go round trip or one way to CONEY by boat. City buses were by then running up to the park from down in town parking in the bus loading area outside of the main gate on Kellogg Avenue. Once my father took the bus up after getting off duty. He met us at the pool; then the afternoon and early evening in the park before boarding the IQ for the run back down to foot of Broadway. There were fireworks usually each summer evening then along with aerial artists and the 'Dynamite Man' who got in a big steel mesh cage, clenched some kind of explosive and set it off. Being in the 'center' of the explosion, it tossed him up and around with everybody gasping, applauding. Then the man and woman they shot out of the big cannon into the nets. What fun. Street cars were then still running along with transit buses at the top of the landing on old Eastern Ave. Hate to repeat what we've posted here previously but...well. Cheers!

R. Dale Flick
Coal Haven Landing, Ohio River, Cincinnati.

Dale: You mention the Hall boys down in the engine spaces wearing...sleeved shirts, etc. We always insisted on our pipe fitters and welders at work (they were always around steam lines) wearing long sleeved shirts to help avoid burns. I too like to wear long sleeved shirts when running MISSIE or MISS BLUE...even in hot summer. I have a dandy scar on my arm where MISSIE kissed me one memorable day! Cap'n Walnut.