Belle of Louisville

The Belle of Louisville is a 1914 sternwheel steamboat owned and operated by the city of Louisville, Kentucky, making it one of the oldest surviving Mississippi-style riverboats in the United States. Built by James Rees & Sons Company in Pittsburgh as the Idlewild for the West Memphis Packet Company, it originally served the Allegheny River before decades of changing names and owners brought it to the Ohio River permanently. Its flat steel hull with an asphalted deck gives it a draft of only about 1.5 meters, allowing navigation in the shallow inland waterways for which these vessels were purpose-built. From May through October it departs from downtown Louisville's central wharf, offering river excursions where the churning rear paddlewheel and white-painted decks evoke the golden era of American steamboat travel — earning it a place on the National Register of Historic Places.