In the golden age of the river, the grandest steamboats that tied up at the St. Louis levee were not just transportation. They were floating palaces. Step aboard one of the great packets in the 1870s and you entered a world of crystal chandeliers, stained glass skylights and white and gold woodwork carved as delicate as lace.
The heart of these boats was the grand saloon, a long central cabin that ran nearly the whole length of the vessel, lined with staterooms and set with plush carpet and fine tables. Here passengers dined on lavish meals, danced to live music, and gambled the miles away as the Mississippi slid past outside. Owners competed to outdo each other in luxury, because a reputation for elegance filled the staterooms and the crowds gathered on the St. Louis wharf to gawk at the finest of them.
It was a glittering, fleeting world, one that faded as railroads stole the traffic and the great boats burned, sank or were simply left to rot. But for a few decades, the levee at St. Louis welcomed some of the most beautiful moving spaces ever built in America. When people say they do not build them like they used to, the floating palaces of the Mississippi are exactly what they mean.
