The legend on the reverse side of the old post card published by Hall Brothers reads: The Missouri River is navigable, carrying a great deal of freight to and from Kansas City and the east. This scene shows the steamboat Chester on the river. Every day during the summer of 1915 the steel-hulled steamer Chester left the docks on the Missouri River at the foot of Delaware Street, twice daily at 2:30 and 8 p.m. for a 2 1/2-hour pleasure trip up or down the river. The fare was 50 cents. The Chester at one time was in the freight packet service, but her long, narrow hull was not well adapted to freight traffic. She was tied up, before her conversion, at Kaw Point for several months, while carpenters and painters remodeled her as a pleasure craft. Excursion steamers had had a bad name in Kansas City. One boat, the Saturn, was ruled off the waters. The Chester, operated by the Kansas City, Missouri River Navigation Company, changed this. No liquor was sold, no gambling tolerated and the ordinary rules of conduct were rigidly enforced. Staterooms on the upper deck had been converted, along with dining salon, into a ballroom. Crew members of the Chester were uniformed and all concessions were operated by Boy Scouts. S. Irvin Flournoy, formerly credit manager of the Webb-Freyschlag Mercantile Company, acted as purser. The boat was open to charter. Lodge and social organizations made dates in advance. Six hundred persons were accommodated comfortably aboard. Kansas City Times, July 27, 1979.
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