The Magnolia Belle is a true paddle-wheel driven riverboat, originally built as a passenger-carrying sternwheeler in Dubuque, Iowa in 1969 by Dubuque Boat & Boiler Co.  The vessel is 105 feet long by 21 feet wide, weighs approximately 84 tons, carries an authentic calliope, and holds approximately 150 passengers for day cruising only. 

This American riverboat was first named the Border Star on the Ohio River (where it raced the Delta Queen in February of 1971); then the Bonnie Belle out of Madison, Indiana (when it was featured in the 1993 Disney film "the Adventures of Huck Finn" with Elijah Wood); the Northern Star then the Arawanna Belle, both ported in Toledo, Ohio; the Cocoa Belle in Cocoa Beach, Florida; and now the Magnolia Belle ported out of Madisonville, Louisiana. 

The ship has also plied many waters in its day including the Ohio and Kentucky Rivers, the upper and lower Mississippi, the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers, and every other river of the Western River system, as well as the Great Lakes, the Intercoastal Waterway, the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. 

The ship has been renovated to its original condition.  The paddlewheel was reworked and welded, and the ship was drydocked during the summer of 2004 to continue its renovation. 

The ship was christened during the Mandeville Seafood Festival on July 2, 2004.

Old News:  The mighty motor vessel "Magnolia Belle" once again proved its seaworthiness by conquering the high seas.  On the evening of May 20, 2004, she put out to sea and after a grueling 37 hours over the Gulf of Mexico she safely made landfall in the early morning hours of May 22nd at St. George Sound, Florida.