This book opens with a brief essay and vintage photographs tracing the history of steamboating on the Mississippi and its tributaries. The second section focuses on the Delta Queen herself; in photographs and text it outlines how she came to be, with her hull fabricated in Scotland, her wheel shafts forged in Germany, and her decks and cabins constructed in California. It also documents the different facets of her character and the fifteen cities to which she continues to bring the grandeur of a bygone age. The final section presents the diary account by one passenger of the "Good Times Jazz Cruise" held in the fall of 1972. The photographs taken on this memorable trip will evoke all the magical sentiment that is part of a journey on the Delta Queen. For many years the only overnight passenger steamboat remaining on America's waterways (she now shares this distinction he sister, the Mississippi Queen), the Delta Queen continues to preserve a unique aspect of Americana.