Old President riverboat may wind up in landlocked rural Illinois town

Oct 18, 2008 (The Kansas City Star - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- ISLE | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- A historic riverboat with nostalgic links to Missouri could be reborn as an 80-room hotel, museum and event center in a rural Illinois community.

The 300-foot long steel President is currently being dismantled by an Alton, Ill., shipyard and by late next year is expected to be reassembled and permanently docked at a pier on Tower Lake in St. Elmo, Ill., within eyeshot of nearby Interstate I-70.

It is a distinguished end for one of the first modern riverboat casinos in U.S. history. And her gambling career came after her designation in 1989 as a National Historic Landmark, cited by the National Park Service as the last of her luxury kind and once "the largest excursion boat in America."

Built and christened in 1924 as the Cincinnati, the President from the mid-1930s into the 1980s was a passenger excursion vessel operating on the Mississippi River from home berths in St. Louis and New Orleans. Countless artists from Louis Armstrong to U2 performed on her decks.

By the late '80s the President was owned by Pittsburgh businessman John Connelly, who was on the cutting edge of successful lobbying efforts to legalize riverboat gambling in Iowa and Missouri. At the time Connelly also owned the aged Admiral riverboat in St. Louis that became the President Casino on the Admiral.

Iowa was the first state to take the riverboat gambling plunge on April 1, 1991, when three gambling vessels there opened for business, among them the President in Davenport, Iowa.

Connelly sold it to Isle of Capri Casinos Inc. a few years later, but the aging vessel soon was replaced and retired. Refitting and recertifying the boat for floating public service would cost an estimated $4 million.

Effingham, Ill., printer David Campbell said he discovered the neglected President in Memphis, Tenn., about four years ago and negotiated her purchase from Isle for $1 -- with a pledge to restore her.

"I wanted something really unique," he said of the old riverboat. "It was an icon in St. Louis."

Campbell said he pitched his waterfront hotel idea to St. Louis officials but drew little civic interest. Then enthusiastic officials in the landlocked hamlet of St. Elmo, population 1,400, stepped up with $2 million worth of incentives, including city-owned land on the lake.

Campbell estimates the cost of converting and remodeling the historic boat as a permanently docked hotel and visitor attraction at around $9 million. He's raised about half that sum and said he's looking for additional investors.

Campbell said he's hopeful the boat won't lose its National Landmark status. "They do frown on us taking it apart," he said.

But he said the plan is to maintain the vessel's historic appearance, while adding a water park and other attractions. "We sure hope they do see it our way," he said.

Interest in the project could get a boost next year when a film crew from London-based Windfall Films completes a documentary for its "Monster Moves" series that has chronicled the relocation of such massive objects as locomotives and ancient Egyptian temples and has been shown on the National Geographic and the Discovery channels.

An episode on moving the President could be ready as early as February.

The riverboat is to be hauled almost 75 miles inland in 15 massive pieces from the Mississippi River town of Alton to St. Elmo.

To reach Rick Alm, call 816-234-4785 or send e-mail to ralm@kcstar.com.

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