The company had a contest to choose the boat's name.
Steamboat lore: it is alleged the CIA air-ops operation, known as ONA, purchased Greene Line Steamers to launder money!
It's an established fact - ONA was a covert CIA Air Ops company. Their main business was to fly troops and supplies into Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. However, to keep their status as a civilian airline, they also flew civilian tourist groups on chartered flights to Europe. To dispose of the money they earned from civilian flights, they bought the Delta Queen Steamboat Company.
The company had architectural plans for the Mississippi Queen, but when ONA took over, they made the boat bigger and badly designed, and sunk a lot of extra money into it. It was a total failure of a boat for the first few years, but then later some smart engineers fixed the problems, and the boat was accepted as a great, authentic paddlewheel steamboat.
Then in 2006, the Mississippi Queen fell into the hands of an anti-American CIA-related corporation that ultimately destroyed the boat. After the 2008 market crash, they went out of business and did their best to kill all the paddlewheel steamboats. The Mississippi Queen was the only one they succeeded in killing.
This would explain why Hinckley told Bill Muster (my father, president of Greene Line Steamers) to "stay out of it" with his suggestions about how to build the Mississippi Queen, and "just run the Delta Queen." My father quit because of the way ONA treated him and all the mistakes they made in building the Mississippi Queen. The boat was too big and went about $24 million over budget.
I swear on a stack of Bibles, our family never knew of any CIA connection. I flew with a friend to Europe and back on ONA in 1972. My father died in 1989 and would have told me Hinckley was CIA if he had known.
The Mississippi Queen was never meant to be functional - and it was not for the first few years of its life. If I had my way, I would purchase the MQ right now and put her back in the cruise business. I would build a CIA conspiracy theory museum onboard! - Nori 10/28/2007
Feedback from a family friend who was around when they were building the Mississippi Queen - 10/29/2007
I don't know anything about that and I don't think Betty [Blake], Bill [Muster] or [Richard] Simonton knew anything about that. From what I remember is that ONA was a charter airline taking groups of passengers to Europe, it may have been used for troop or military transfers but that was mainly a company I think was called "Air Lift."
As far as I remember the story Steedman Hinckley's father bought him the airline and I think by the time ONA or Steedman bought the boat, the company was already operating under the name of the Delta Queen Steamboat Co. and the original design drawings of the Mississippi Queen were already completed. [Editor's note: the drawings for the Mississippi Queen were completed before the sale, but the company name remained Greene Line Steamers until officially changed to Delta Queen Steamboat Company, Inc., in September 1973.]
Steedman wanted to increase the passenger load of the boat and redesign it by putting on an extra deck and making it longer, which compromised the structure of the boat. He had put one of his friends, a Greek man I don't remember his name. in charge of the construction of the boat. Apparently he didn't have a clue about boat building and made several mistakes. As you remember, Steedman sold the company to Coca Cola before the MQ was finished. [Editor's note: Hinckley sold the Delta Queen Steamboat Company to Coca-cola Bottling Company of New York in January 1976. The Mississippi Queen was christened in April 1975; first cruise July 1976.]
I never heard anything about Steedman other than he was the son of a very rich man and very spoiled, he was also married to a Swedish woman.
Let's Remember the Mississippi Queen.
Mississippi Queen mermaids monument on the Ohio River.
Selected Mississippi Queen blueprints.
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