The riverboat captain is a storyteller. Captain Don Sanders shares the stories of his long association with the river — from discovery to a way of love and life. This a part of a long and continuing story.
By Capt. Don Sanders
Special to NKyTribune
At 2:45 p.m., Sunday, March 4, 1972, the DELTA QUEEN landed at Toulouse Street Wharf in New Orleans, ending a weekend cruise chartered by the Louisiana Dental Association.
Quickly, the crew encouraged all one-hundred thirty-eight charter group members off the boat. Among several crewmembers also departing the DELTA QUEEN was Captain Ernest E. Wagner, the legendary Master of the paddlewheeler that was then the most celebrated steamboat in the world. Cap’n Ernie was heading for home in New Richmond, Ohio. In his place, Captain Harry Louden stepped onboard after an uneventful flight to the Crescent City from Cincinnati, Cap’n Harry’s hometown.
Once all the charter guests were ashore, a frenzy began getting the boat turned around for a 9 p.m. departure for Memphis. Beds were stripped and remade with clean linens as soiled sheets, pillow slips, towels, and whatever-else found their way to the linen room on the Main Deck, port side, where the “linen boy” counted and inventoried them prior sorting the dirty laundry into huge bundles before the trucks arrived to haul them away for cleaning. During the mania, supplies poured in—canned and fresh groceries, frozen meats, deck supplies, engine-room oil drums, and even a refueling barge.
Everyone available pitched in to help along with their own duties. Deckhands wheeled loads of trash to a cavernous metal dumpster parked on the wooden Toulouse Street wharf. But as soon as all the garbage was off, they assisted where the need was the greatest. The steamboat was a madcap frenzy of activity from top to bottom, fore and aft; inside and out for several hours. Then, almost miraculously, the DELTA QUEEN sparkled again, as it was 6 p.m. and time to board 151 new passengers for the New Orleans to Memphis trip.
At 9:15, Captain Louden called, “All Gone,” as the last line slipped off the bollard on the wharf. Captain Howard “Towline” Tate, the pilot on Harry’s forward watch, blew three short blasts on the QUEEN’s iconic three-chime, gold-plated Lunkenheimer steam whistle – “We’re operating machinery astern.” Then, a long, prolonged plume of steam – “Watch out– the DELTA QUEEN is underway!”
The DELTA QUEEN assumed her usual rhythmic cadence as her 50-ton paddlewheel dug into the Mississippi River’s darkened waters surging through the New Orleans harbor. Cap’n Tate kept the QUEEN running close to the long line of wooden wharfs to stay clear of the current. Only when he had to guide the vessel away from a dredger working close to a dock did he vary the path away from the wooden wharves along the New Orleans shore.
At the midnight watch change, the logbook recorded the DELTA QUEEN’s position at Fairview Crossing Light where Captain “Handsome Harry” Hamilton relieved Tate as pilot. Being the First Mate, I assumed responsibility of the QUEEN, relieving Captain Louden. Captains Louden, Tate, and Hamilton were all a generation, or more, experienced than I. Although I had just tested for, and received my coveted Master of Steam and Motor Vessels of All Gross Tons License from the United States Coast Guard just two months earlier, my duties and responsibilities were proportional to my position as a vessel officer and not commensurate to my time in grade. Although I occupied an elevated slot on the steamboat, I respected and garnered all the knowledge I could learn from my elder boatmen.
At 6 a.m., Monday, March 6th, with the overpowering smell of Canadian Bacon frying in the galley, the DELTA QUEEN passed Rich Bend Light at Mile 156.4. By noon, six hours later, Handsome Harry and I relieved Towline Tate and Cappy Louden at Bayou Goula Range Front Light, Mile 187.1, gaining 30.7 miles at 5.1 miles per hour against a rising river. The day was sunny and mild, with a light wind, and 62 degrees. Over the PA system, Chief Purser Gabriel Chengery announced the first seating for lunch in the Orleans Room on the Main Deck. Passengers excitedly queued in a long line trailing down the steps from the Cabin Deck for the buffet-style luncheon awaiting below. Crew members ate their noon meal in the Crew’s Mess located in the Hold Deck.
On one occasion, a travel magazine writer who’d just feasted lavishly in the Orleans Room while the crew endured “soul food” served as an experiment on the mess deck, interviewing Captain Howard Tate, asked him how the food was for the crew.
“Lady,” Tate began, “They slop us like a bunch of hogs… just like a bunch of hogs.”
At 5:45 p.m., the boat docked at Capitol Marine in Baton Rouge, where 23 ‘foreign passengers’ disembarked, leaving 128 aboard. Fancy Point Towhead came at Midnight on Tuesday, March 7, with an average speed of 5.4 miles per hour over 27 miles—Bayou Sara Gage, 20-feet and rising, at 1 a.m.. By 6 a.m., the DELTA QUEEN was abreast Tunica Bluff Light, a distance of 36 miles at six miles per hour. The QUEEN had gained nearly a mile an hour in a slightly slacking current. After the morning watch passed, another 33 miles slipped beneath the bow.
An hour after lunch, Head Waiter Robert Davis’ staff rearranged the Orleans Room into a small theatre where I gave my afternoon talk to the passengers about the history of the river and such. During one spiel, however, I slipped into forbidden territory when I gave a presentation highlighting “music on the river.” Cincinnatian Ed Duemler, one of my star deckhands played the banjo and sang. Ed demonstrated his musical and vocal prowess belting a few tunes popular on the steamboats of the 19th Century. One song I remember was “Steamboat Done Put Me Out O’ Doors,” a sad lament originally performed by roustabouts on steamboats on the Mississippi River when cotton was king, steamboat hulls were wood, and men made of iron.
A few days after my ‘musical extravaganza,’ William Muster, president of the Delta Queen Steamboat Company, called me to his office. Bill explained that musical entertainment was the exclusive domain of Colonel Vic Tooker, the Interlocutor of the DELTA QUEEN. He warned me to stay clear of the Colonel’s bailiwick in the future. I promised I would. After Ed graduated from college, he taught in the Cincinnati Public School System. Had he stayed on the boat, Ed Duemler possessed all the makings of a mighty-fine steamboat captain.
Historic Natchez, situated on the last loess bluff of the muddy Mississippi, arrived at 6:15 p.m. We departed with three additional guests 35 minutes later. By midnight, the QUEEN passed Brown’s Field Light, Mile 388.8, on Wednesday, March 8th, 1972. At 6 a.m., we found ourselves at Cannon Point Light, covering 30.9 miles paddling at 5.15 mph on a cloudy, windy morning, with the thermometer outside the window aft the ‘lazy bench’ reading 56 degrees.
Four and a half hours later, the DELTA QUEEN landed at the Vicksburg waterfront for a short stay. At 1:40, the QUEEN, docked in the narrow Yazoo Diversionary Canal, departed with two additional people, but had trouble turning around until the local harbor tug KATE TULLY assisted getting the QUEEN headed down in the canal. In 1876, the Mississippi River changed course, leaving Vicksburg high and dry until the U. S. Army Engineers diverted the waters of the Yazoo River through the old bed of the big river in front of the city, creating a waterfront for Vicksburg again.
For the next three days, the DELTA QUEEN bucked the swift, rising current of the “Father of Waters.”
According to the logbook, the DELTA QUEEN reached Stack Island at midnight on Thursday, March 9. By 6 a.m., she passed Kentucky Bend Footlight, stopping two miles below Greenville Bridge for fuel from 10:45 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. Choctaw Bend Lower came at 6 p.m., and Malone Field Upper Light at midnight, averaging 4.6 mph over the watch.
On Friday, March 10th, at 6 a.m., Cessions Towhead arrived after making a distance of 26 miles at a speed of 4.4 mph. The QUEEN passed Miller’s Point at noon with a landing at Friar’s Point at 1:40 p.m. to “put off 30 passengers,” according to Captain Louden’s handwritten entry. The DELTA QUEEN departed Friar’s Point with 104 passengers on a sunny, warm afternoon of 74 degrees.
The QUEEN passed beneath the old Helena, Arkansas Bridge at 4:08. At the 6 p.m. watch change, she was at the Mouth of the St. Francis River, as the melodic voice of Chief Purser Gabriel Chengery announced open seating for the Captain’s Dinner that evening. At midnight, Saturday, March 11, the entry for the QUEEN’s log showed her at Buck Island with a mean speed of 4.8 mph over a run of 28.8 fluvial miles.
At 6 a.m., Wyanoka Light, and 8 a.m., the DELTA QUEEN landed at the Waterways Marine dock floating at the foot of Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee. In my handwriting, the logbook read:
“End of Trip. Zang on, Tate off.” Captain Bob Zang, a popular pilot on the QUEEN, replaced Captain Tate who lived in Memphis.
With the swift current on the rebound cruise to New Orleans, the DELTA QUEEN completed the 615-mile trip within five days, including shore stops. According to the logbook, the QUEEN reached speeds exceeding 14 miles per hour.
At the time of this story, fifty-three years ago this week, the DELTA QUEEN was perhaps the “most venerated steamboat in the world.” As of March 10, 2025, the beloved Delta Queen rests in quiet decay near Houma, Louisiana—still cherished but awaiting a ‘Guardian Angel’ to see her steam upon the Great Inland Rivers of America once more.
Although the DELTA QUEEN has historically been as crucial to America as the Statue of Liberty, the Golden Gate Bridge, and many other national landmarks, she needs help now. As in the words of the 1970 tune performed by the celebrated singer and actor, Gary Busey:
“Don’t let her die, the people cry– Save the DELTA QUEEN!”
Captain Don Sanders is a river man. He has been a riverboat captain with the Delta Queen Steamboat Company and with Rising Star Casino. He learned to fly an airplane before he learned to drive a “machine” and became a captain in the USAF. He is an adventurer, a historian and a storyteller. Now, he is a columnist for the NKyTribune, sharing his stories of growing up in Covington and his stories of the river. Hang on for the ride — the river never looked so good.
Purchase Captain Don Sanders’ The River book here
Capt. Don Sanders The River: River Rat to steamboatman, riding ‘magic river spell’ to 65-year adventure is now available for $29.95 plus handling and applicable taxes. This beautiful, hardback, published by the Northern Kentucky Tribune, is 264-pages of riveting storytelling, replete with hundreds of pictures from Capt. Don’s collection — and reflects his meticulous journaling, unmatched storytelling, and his appreciation for detail. This historically significant book is perfect for the collections of every devotee of the river.
You may purchase your book by mail from the Northern Kentucky Tribune — or you may find the book for sale at all Roebling Books locations and at the Behringer Crawford Museum and the St. Elizabeth Healthcare gift shops.
Order your Captain Don Sanders’ ‘The River’ book here.
Although my love affair with the Delta Queen started 30 years later, it all sounds so familiar. It seems as if I physically ache to be on her again. Thanks for helping me relive those wonderful days.
You and me both, Ginnie!
What a great story Cap, just reading from the Ship’s Log from a day long ago. That next summer in 1973, I was a youngin’ at 13 years of age, my family and another family of close friends had rented a houseboat for a week out of Aurora, Indiana. We just cruised up and down the river, never going through Markland L&D. The best I can recall, we saw the Queen coming upriver, making the big turn at Patriot, Ind. My dad had one of those old Super 8 film camera in which he caught that lovely sight on a perfect July summer’s day. We still have that film someplace. It’s a memory eteched in my mind at 65.
I grew up in Aurora, Indiana next door to Hillforest. When I couldn’t get to the river I’d watch THE QUEEN from my bedroom window. I miss those days.
Aye, Capt. Don! We plead for these DELTA QUEEN Guardian Angels unawares to arise and attend. May they be river-blooded with steam-driven hearts and souls!