Boats Facts

Built in 1914, the Belle of Louisville was two days from the scrapyard in 1962. A Cincinnati reporter talked a judge into an auction. Jefferson County bought her and rebuilt her from the hull up. She is now the oldest operating Mississippi River-style steamboat on Earth. This April, at 112 years old, she out-distanced the Belle of Cincinnati to win the Great Steamboat Race. She still churns down the Ohio every week.

When the towers fell on September 11, the Coast Guard put out one call on marine radio: all available boats. Ferry captains turned mid-route. Tugboat operators dropped everything. Fishing boats, private yachts, dinner cruises - hundreds showed up. In nine hours, they evacuated nearly 500,000 people by water. The largest maritime evacuation in history. Larger than Dunkirk, which took nine days.