I wonder if anyone remembered that June 28th marked four decades since the big blow struck the riverfront, breaking loose the steamboat restaurant boat Becky Thatcher and the replica of the Santa Maria that then Mayor A.J. Cervantes brought to St. Louis in early 1969 for a tourist attraction. Nearly 100 diners aboard the Becky went for a wild ride down the Missisippi, barely clearing two bridges before crashing into the Illinois bank and being rescued by a towboat. The Becky suffered minimal damage, but the wooden bottomed Santa Maria sank and had to be raised and restored before returning to the riverfront in 1970.
My dear friend and mentor of river history, the late Miss Ruth Ferris, was curator of the riverboat museum aboard the Becky at the time and was not a fan of the “Santa Banana” as she called it, mainly because the replica ship alongside the steamboat blocked her view from the museum door! I would be pleased to hear from any former “crew members” of the Becky from four decades ago on the St. Louis levee. The Santa Maria later went to Florida and was destroyed by fire in 1974. The Becky Thatcher has been at Marietta, Ohio since 1975, but has been closed for the past four years and is for sale on Ebay.
Keith Norrington
New Albany, Ind.