Some boats are haunted by tragedy. The Delta Queen, I think, is haunted by love. She is a grand old sternwheel steamboat, nearly a hundred years old, and for decades her crew and passengers have said that a small, elderly lady still keeps an eye on her: Captain Mary Greene, one of the first women ever licensed to pilot a steamboat, who died aboard in 1949. For a few years she was even a floating hotel in Chattanooga, where you could sleep a few doors from Mary’s old cabin. Here is the boat’s remarkable history, the story of Captain Mary, and the ghost tales, along with where the Delta Queen is today.
Built in Scotland, born in California
The Delta Queen’s story starts a long way from the Mississippi. Her steel hull, lower decks and steam machinery were made in 1924–1926 at the William Denny & Brothers shipyard in Dumbarton, Scotland, on the River Leven by the Clyde. They were shipped in pieces to Stockton, California, where the California Transportation Company assembled her alongside her twin, the Delta King. The two boats entered overnight service between San Francisco and Sacramento in 1927, and at the time they were among the most lavish and expensive sternwheel passenger boats ever built.
A new highway between the two cities killed their trade, and both boats were laid up in 1940. During the Second World War the U.S. Navy took the Delta Queen, painted her battleship grey, and used her on San Francisco Bay, including ferrying wounded servicemen from ships to hospitals.
Down the Panama Canal to the Mississippi
In 1946 Captain Tom Greene of the Greene Line of Cincinnati bought the Delta Queen. Getting a flat-bottomed river steamboat from California to the Ohio River was a crazy undertaking: she was boarded up and towed through the open sea and the Panama Canal to New Orleans, then up the Mississippi and Ohio, and refitted for the river. Newspapers followed the voyage closely. She entered passenger service in 1948, and for the next sixty years she cruised the Ohio, Mississippi, Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, to Cincinnati, New Orleans, St. Paul, Nashville, Chattanooga and many towns in between.
She became a beloved institution. Presidents Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman and Jimmy Carter all traveled on her. Her steam calliope played her in and out of port, and every spring she raced the Belle of Louisville in the Great Steamboat Race at the Kentucky Derby Festival. She was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970 and became a National Historic Landmark in 1989.
Captain Mary Becker Greene
Mary Becker, born in Ohio in 1867, married steamboat captain Gordon C. Greene in 1890 and went to live on his packet boat. Standing watch with him in the pilot house, she learned the river. In early 1896 she took out her pilot’s papers at Pittsburgh, a rare achievement for a woman at the time; she later earned her master’s license too (sources give 1897). She went on to command boats of her own, and she and Gordon built the Greene Line into one of the best-known steamboat companies on the Ohio. River people called her “Ma Greene” or simply Captain Mary.
When her son Tom brought the Delta Queen into service, Mary moved aboard and lived in a cabin fitted out for her. She didn’t get long to enjoy it. She died in her cabin aboard the Delta Queen in April 1949, at about 81. Most sources give 22 April; a couple say 23 April. Two days before, according to one account, she had been dancing the Virginia Reel with passengers. Her son Tom died the following year, and his widow, Letha Greene, kept the line going.
The ghost of Mary Greene
From here we’re in legend territory. These are the stories told by crew and passengers, repeated in many books and articles, and I can’t verify any of them.
The bar and the Mary B
Mary Greene was a strict teetotaler and wouldn’t allow alcohol on Greene Line boats. The legend says that after she died, a bar was installed on the Delta Queen. Within days of its opening, a small towboat crashed into the side of the steamboat, right where the new bar was. When the crew went to look, they found the towboat’s name: the Mary B. Accounts don’t agree on when this happened. Some say soon after her death; others place it much later. And the story has all the neatness of a tale polished by retelling. But it’s the one everyone on the river knows.
The warning in the night
The most famous modern story comes from Captain Mike Williams. In 1984, the story goes, he was alone aboard during a winter lay-up when he was woken by a breath on his cheek and a whispered “psst”. Getting up to check, he found water pouring into the hull, and he was able to stop the leak before the boat came to harm. He credited Mary with the warning.
Other sightings
Crew members and entertainers have described a small elderly woman in old-fashioned clothes, sometimes in a green robe, walking through the lounges and vanishing around a corner. One pianist is said to have recognized her from a portrait of Captain Mary aboard. Others mention a cold door handle on her old cabin and the scent of lilac perfume. The Travel Channel series Ghost Brothers investigated the boat in an episode aired in 2016.
What I love about these stories is that Mary is never frightening. She disapproves of the bar, she warns the captain about a leak, she wanders the lounges. She’s a guardian, not a horror.
The Chattanooga years
The Delta Queen’s long career ended because of fire safety law. Because so much of her superstructure is wood, she needed a congressional exemption from the 1966 Safety of Life at Sea rules to carry overnight passengers, and that exemption was renewed many times. In 2008 it ran out, and her last cruise ended that autumn.
On 11 February 2009 she arrived in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to become a floating hotel at Coolidge Park on the North Shore, across the Tennessee River from downtown. The Delta Queen Hotel opened in June 2009, and for a few years guests could sleep in her old cabins, dine aboard, and hear the stories of Captain Mary from the staff. Unsurprisingly, the hotel years produced more ghost reports. Disputes with the city over the mooring followed, and the hotel closed in December 2014.
Where is the Delta Queen now?
In early 2015 the newly formed Delta Queen Steamboat Company bought her, and on 22 March 2015 she left Chattanooga under tow for Houma, Louisiana, where she arrived in April 2015 for restoration. In December 2018 Congress passed and the President signed a new exemption, running to 2028, that would let her carry overnight passengers again once restored. But the money for a full restoration, estimated at well over $10 million, never came through. The COVID-19 pandemic stopped fundraising, and in August 2021 Hurricane Ida hit her mooring at Houma directly, damaging her roof, doors and windows.
In June 2025 the company announced the Delta Queen was for sale, preferring buyers who would keep her intact. A preservation trust based in Jeffersonville, Indiana, formed in 2024 with the aim of bringing her back to the Ohio River as an attraction. As of the latest reports I could find, she was still moored near Houma, with no sale completed. Her future may well have changed by the time you read this, so check the Delta Queen Steamboat Company’s website and recent news before making plans.
Visiting
For now, the Delta Queen isn’t open to visitors. She’s moored privately in a working waterway near Houma, so please don’t trespass. Here’s how to connect with her story instead:
- Chattanooga: walk the Coolidge Park riverfront on the North Shore, where she was moored as a hotel, and look out over the Tennessee River.
- Covington, Kentucky: a statue of Captain Mary Greene stands on the riverfront, opposite Cincinnati, the Greene Line’s home port.
- Sacramento: her twin, the Delta King, is moored in Old Sacramento and has operated for years as a hotel and restaurant (check that it is open before you go), so you can get a feel for what the Delta Queen was like inside.
FAQ
Who haunts the Delta Queen?
Legend says it’s Captain Mary Becker Greene, a pioneering steamboat pilot and captain who died aboard in April 1949.
Is the Delta Queen still in Chattanooga?
No. She was a hotel in Chattanooga from 2009 to 2014, then was towed to Houma, Louisiana, in 2015. She was listed for sale in 2025.
Can you stay on the Delta Queen?
Not at the moment. If you want to sleep on a steamboat like her, her twin, the Delta King, has long operated as a hotel in Old Sacramento; check its current status first.
Where was the Delta Queen built?
Her hull and machinery were built in Dumbarton, Scotland, and she was assembled at Stockton, California, entering service in 1927.
Top image: The Delta Queen docked in Chattanooga during her hotel years. Photo: Sesamehoneytart, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons