Boblo Boat Ste. Claire Reopens as a Museum Near Belle Isle

The SS Ste. Claire is taking on visitors again, this time without leaving the dock.

The steamship, one of two Boblo boats that carried Metro Detroiters down the river to the Boblo Island amusement park for most of the 20th century, has opened to the public as a museum on its main deck. The vessel sits at 150 St. Jean Street in Detroit, close to Reid Memorial Park and a short distance from Belle Isle.

"It's been almost 20 years since the public has had the opportunity to come aboard the historic Boblo Boat Ste. Claire," the group behind the restoration wrote in a Facebook post announcing the opening. "The question we hear more than any other is: 'When can we come aboard?' Well… the time is finally here!"

Admission is $10 for adults, $5 for children ages 6 to 17, and free for kids 5 and under. Museum hours haven't been set yet, and visitors are directed to the group's website, bobloboatdetroit.com, to schedule a visit. Organizers said ticket revenue will go toward finishing the restoration of the boat, which has sat out of service far longer than it ever operated as a museum piece.

The Ste. Claire and its sister ship, the Columbia, began ferrying passengers to Boblo Island in 1910 and 1902, respectively. Each could carry more than 2,500 passengers, and together they moved as many as 800,000 visitors a year to the island park at the peak of its popularity in the 1960s and 1970s. The boarding dock in Detroit started at the foot of Woodward Avenue, later moved behind what is now Cobo Center, and eventually relocated to Gibraltar in 1991, the year the amusement park could no longer afford to keep the boats running. Boblo Island itself closed two years later, in 1993.

Ron Kattoo, a critical care doctor from West Bloomfield Township, bought the Ste. Claire with another doctor in 2007, hoping to restore it. The project hit a serious setback in 2018, when a fire broke out on the boat while it was docked at Riverside Marina on the Detroit River. The damage was severe enough that in 2024 the U.S. Department of the Interior stripped the Ste. Claire of its National Historic Landmark designation, concluding in a report that the vessel "no longer retains its historical integrity."

The boats have not faded from public memory in the years since they stopped sailing. A 2022 documentary, "Boblo Boats: A Detroit Ferry Tale," chronicled the history of both ships and the different paths they've taken since 1991. The Columbia has its own separate restoration effort underway elsewhere. For the Ste. Claire, the museum opening is the first time in nearly two decades that anyone outside the restoration crew has been able to walk its floors.

Detroiters who rode the boat as kids have kept its story alive largely through word of mouth and social media groups devoted to Boblo Island nostalgia, trading photos of moonlight cruises and card games on deck, along with memories of the five-minute run from downtown that once ended at the amusement park's gates. The museum opening gives that audience, along with newer residents who only know the boat from old photographs, a chance to see the vessel in person for the first time since the 2018 fire.

Organizers haven't given a timeline for when full restoration might be complete or what future phases of the project will look like beyond the main deck museum. For now, visitors are asked to book through the group's website while organizers work out a regular visiting schedule.