Detroiters will be able to step aboard the S.S. Ste. Claire for the first time in decades starting tomorrow, as restoration manager Stephen Faraj begins welcoming passengers onto the historic Boblo boat's first level. The 1910 steamship, which last carried passengers to and from Boblo Island Amusement Park in 1993, has sat closed to the public for more than 30 years while private restoration efforts slowly rebuilt it from the hull up.
According to MLive, reservations are now available to board the ship's first floor for $10, with children ages 5 to 17 admitted for $5 and a family of five able to board for $25. A small museum featuring nostalgia from Boblo is opening on that first level this week, and proceeds go directly toward finishing the restoration and preserving the boat for future generations, per the outlet's report.
From Charred Hull to Rebuilt Decks
The path back to this moment began on July 6, 2018, when a fire believed by Detroit fire investigators to have been sparked by a welder's torch tore through the Ste. Claire at Riverside Marina, according to ClickOnDetroit. The blaze destroyed the ship's historic wooden upper decks and mahogany interior woodwork, leaving only its steel hull and framework intact. Per MLive's report, cleanup from the fire alone took a year.
The damage was severe enough that the U.S. National Park Service officially revoked the Ste. Claire's National Historic Landmark designation on December 11, 2023, and removed it from the National Register of Historic Places on December 20, 2023, because the fire had destroyed its historic wooden superstructure. The ship had originally earned that landmark status in July 1992.
Faraj reported that his family invested more than $1 million of private funds into rebuilding the framework and floor decks, a grassroots effort that has proceeded largely without major municipal or government funding, according to WXYZ-TV. MLive reports the Ste. Claire has now rebuilt all four decks, with decks two, three and four almost ready to welcome guests. Steel framing, rather than the original wood, will allow people onto the fourth level for the first time — passengers were never able to access that level even before the fire, per the same report.
A Steamer That Will Never Sail Again
Modern Coast Guard safety regulations restrict wooden superstructures on active passenger vessels, which is why restoration crews replaced the burned wooden decks with steel framing so the ship can function safely as a stationary dockside attraction rather than a sailing vessel. The Ste. Claire will remain in one place going forward and will not move, in order to prevent damage, MLive reports. Faraj said that even if the boat were to move, it would not do so under its original engine — though he wants to preserve that steam engine as a centerpiece of the exhibit.
The 190-foot vessel was designed by naval architect Frank E. Kirby and launched by the Toledo Shipbuilding Company, making it among the last propeller-driven excursion steamships built for the Great Lakes, according to Historic Detroit. It featured a riveted steel hull powered by a 1,200-horsepower triple-expansion steam engine and could hold around 2,500 passengers, ferrying them on an 18-mile trip down the Detroit River to the amusement park.
Boblo Island's Long Afterlife
Boblo Island Amusement Park operated on Bois Blanc Island in Canadian waters for nearly a century before permanently closing on September 30, 1993, according to the Windsor Star. The property, located next to Amherstburg, Ontario, was later redeveloped into a residential community that now includes around 200 newer homes and condos, and MLive reports the island — now called Bois Blanc, Canada, and owned by Amico Infrastructures — still has remnants of the old amusement park scattered across it. A private car ferry now runs around the clock to bring residents and their vehicles to and from Amherstburg.
The interior the restoration team is working to recreate once featured rich mahogany paneling, cream-painted beamed ceilings, a grand central staircase, a ballroom dance floor, and an open engine casing where passengers could watch the steam engine running, according to the Boblo Boat Ste. Claire project. Restorers have said they intend to rebuild the grand staircase and dance floor using salvaged original pieces.
A Civil Rights Legacy Beyond the Nostalgia
Long before the fire or the amusement park's closure, a Boblo steamer became the setting for a pivotal civil rights case. In 1945, 24-year-old Black secretary Sarah Elizabeth Ray was forcibly ejected from a Boblo boat, sparking a lawsuit led by NAACP attorney Thurgood Marshall that resulted in the 1948 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Bob-Lo Excursion Co. v. Michigan, desegregating the ferries, according to the University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library. Legal scholars consider Ray's victory a crucial precedent leading up to Brown v. Board of Education.
The Ste. Claire's sister ship, the S.S. Columbia, built in 1902, is being restored in New York, where the nonprofit S.S. Columbia Project aims to return her to excursion service on the Hudson River. Like the Ste. Claire, the Columbia could once hold around 2,500 passengers. Both ships' histories were chronicled in the 2022 documentary Boblo Boats: A Detroit Ferry Tale, directed by Aaron Schillinger and narrated by Motown legend Martha Reeves as the voice of the Columbia, which documented seven years of restoration efforts, per FOX 2 Detroit.
For now, the focus in Detroit is on tomorrow's reopening. Parking near the boat, located at 150 St. Jean, is free but limited, MLive notes, and Faraj said he is simply ready to let people back onto the vessel after so many years of work. Once restoration is complete, the fourth level will allow passengers to walk all the way up to the pilot house — a part of the ship the public has never been permitted to see.
