Two Days From the Scrap Heap, She's Still Racing at 112

In May 1962, a battered sternwheeler called the Avalon sat tied up on the Ohio River with a court date to be torn apart for scrap. Instead, a newspaper reporter's scheme sent her to auction. She is still racing today.

A Working Boat Run Into the Ground

The steamboat was built in 1914 in Pittsburgh as the Idlewild, a ferry and freight packet with a steel hull that drew just five feet of water.

She spent decades hauling passengers and cargo up and down the country's rivers under a string of owners, later sailing as the Avalon. By the early 1960s, the boat's owners had run out of money for repairs.

The U.S. Coast Guard condemned her hull as unfit. Her owners decided scrapping her was cheaper than fixing her.

Two Days From the Scrapyard

A Cincinnati newspaperman thought demolition was the wrong ending for a boat that old. He pushed for a public auction instead and got a court injunction just two days before she was due to be broken up.

Jefferson County Judge Executive Marlow Cook won the bidding and renamed the boat the Belle of Louisville.

Critics in the county called it a waste of public money on an old boat. Cook rebuilt her anyway, from the hull up.

The World's Oldest Working Steamboat

By 1963, the rebuilt Belle was ready to compete in the first Great Steamboat Race, a Kentucky Derby Festival tradition that pits her against a rival paddlewheeler on the Ohio.

Today she is the oldest operating Mississippi River-style steamboat in the world, and a National Historic Landmark. She still runs on the same paddlewheel power that moved her in 1914.

112 Years Old and Still Winning

On April 29, 2026, the Belle faced the Belle of Cincinnati in the 63rd Great Steamboat Race. The Belle of Cincinnati crossed the line first, but judges ruled Louisville's boat had covered the greater distance under the race rules.

The Belle took home the silver antlers, the trophy passed to the winning boat, for the 32nd time since the race began.

She still carries passengers up and down the Ohio every week of the season, more than six decades after Jefferson County bought her at auction to save her from the scrapyard.