STEAMBOAT REPLICA GOES TO MUSEUM

The Cape Girardeau, built in 1923 by the Howard Ship Yard in Jefferson, Ind., was a 210-foot packet boat that carried passengers and cargo between Cape Girardeau and St. Louis before it was sold and renamed in 1935.

The Cape Girardeau model built by Ken Marvin is only 54 inches long but will make Cape Girardeau its permanent home port on Wednesday.

The Mountain Home, Ark., resident has donated the glass-encased model of the Cape Girardeau and another model to the Cape River Heritage Museum. An open house will be held for the builder and his models from 4 to 7 p.m. Wednesday at the museum, 538 Independence St.

Marvin, who retired as operations manager of the San Diego Zoo in 1990, has made about 20 model ships and boats since the 1950s. His boats are on display in maritime museums in London, San Diego and Mystic, Conn.

The Cape Girardeau model, which took 2,700 hours and three years to complete, is one of his best efforts, Marvin says.

The replica is made of loblolly pine, basswood and oak. Each of the 90 doors on the 3/16 scale model is made of four different pieces of wood. The boat is based on a plan -- not a kit -- of the original Cape Girardeau, exposed boilers, tubing and all.

"Shipbuilders went as cheap as they could," he said by phone. "They didn't want to build a terribly extravagant boat. They didn't last long on the Mississippi.

"If they didn't blow up they were caught on an ice jam or went to the bottom on a snag."

Operating under a variety of pseudonyms, the Cape Girardeau was an exception. It became the Gorden C. Greene when sold to the Green Line Steamers of Cincinnati in 1935, then was sold in 1952 to become a floating hotel in Portsmouth, Ohio.

It was the River Queen floating restaurant in Owensboro, Ky., for awhile, then was moved to Bradenton, Fla., New Orleans, Hannibal and finally St. Louis, where it sank in 1967.

The steamboat Cape Girardeau was the third boat to be called the Cape Girardeau but the first to be launched under the name. It also was the last packet boat -- boats that carried both cargo and passengers -- built by the Howard Ship Yard, the country's major steamboat builder.

Marvin has spent a good part of his life on the water, first in the Merchant Marine and later living on a trawler on San Diego's harbor. He has built many American clipper ships, a slaver and some British boats. Besides models, he also has built a fully operational steam engine and a solid brass ship's cannon. The Cape Girardeau is his first steamboat.

Before starting he read the books "Steamboating on the Upper Mississippi," "Life on the River" and "Steamboats Come True." "Before I laid out the template I wanted to know as much as I could," he said.

When Marvin began looking for a home for the Cape Girardeau, he called information and was told the city had no maritime museum. Finally he discovered the Cape River Heritage Museum through the Visitors and Convention Bureau.

Danny Back, president of the museum's board and a self-proclaimed "steamboat fanatic," traveled to Mountain Home to look at the model of the Cape Girardeau. He pronounces it "absolutely beautiful."