WOOD RIVER • The bright neon paddle wheel stopped beckoning gamblers to the East St. Louis riverfront years ago. The cacophony from slot machines fell silent.
The old Casino Queen riverboat, once a garish symbol of opportunity, is now stripped to its bones in a backwater boatyard, waiting for a little luck of its own.
Raccoons, mud swallows, sunshine and time have left the once-majestic vessel with tattered awnings, broken windows, rusted metal and peeling paint. It sits in Wood River, technically under arrest by U.S. marshals.
Today, they plan to auction the vessel to pay off its obligations and perhaps set it off on a new career.
Technically, it’s now called the White Star One. And after a federal lawsuit, an aborted auction and bankruptcy cases in two states, it is to be sold at 1 p.m.
East St. Louis was guaranteed a license when Illinois legislators authorized riverboat gambling to try to revitalize riverfront communities. In 1992, officials announced that a new, $13 million replica of a 19th-century sidewheeler was on the way. It would be the largest gambling vessel in Illinois and one of the biggest in the U.S.
The Casino Queen arrived the next year, stretching more than 400 feet at its mooring near the Eads Bridge. It held up to 3,000 passengers on three chandelier-accented gambling decks, plus a lounge on top.
The state required the boat to cruise the river, when conditions permitted, during gambling sessions. It last left the dock with passengers in 1999; regulators had relaxed the rules.
Further rule changes, in 2007, ended the boat’s career by allowing the gambling floor to be moved to a “boat in a moat,” a barge permanently anchored just inland.
The old Casino Queen went up for sale.
White Star Line LLC, managed by John Joslyn, bought it in 2008 for $2.5 million. The new owner moored it at
Mike’s Inc., a boatyard in Wood River, at $200 a day, beginning Oct. 26, 2008.
In court filings, lawyers for Mike’s said it was supposed to stay only a short time.
Reached Thursday by phone, the Mike’s Inc., operations manager, Mike Marko Jr., said, “It seems like it’s been there forever.”
General Manager Amy Marko recalled that it arrived with carpet and other fixtures in place, and slot machine tokens scattered on the floor. Contractors eventually stripped the interior.
A TITANIC MUSEUM?
Mike’s workers heard that Joslyn, a Titanic shipwreck obsessive who has created Titanic museums in Branson and elsewhere, planned to turn the boat into another.
Joslyn is a former television producer who took a submersible to the Titanic wreck in 1986 and produced a documentary, “Return to the Titanic ... Live.”
But the museum plans apparently stalled.
White Star stopped making payments for a short time in the fall of 2010.
The rent went up to $300 a day on Jan. 1, 2011, $500 a day on Oct. 31, 2011, and $1,000 a day in
February 2013.
Lawyers for Mike’s Inc., filed an admiralty complaint in March 2013, claiming White Star Line and Joslyn failed to pay for almost $300,000 in mooring fees and other services since April 2011. The suit asked a judge to order that the boat be “arrested, condemned and sold,” with proceeds to first go toward bills at Mike’s.
Regions Bank then claimed that Joslyn and White Star owed $1.4 million on a $2.5 million promissory note from 2008.
ACF Property Management Inc. claimed that Joslyn and White Star owed it more than $1 million.
White Star and Joslyn asked for a delay in the proceedings, saying they were planning to move the boat elsewhere and obtain financing that would repay Regions Bank, ACF and Mike’s.
Joslyn, also in filings, said that the loans were personally guaranteed by himself and his wife, meaning that lenders would pursue them if sale proceeds don’t cover the debts.
In filings, White Star also complained about the price increases. But Mike’s responded that White Star did not protest at the time, nor move the boat.
A lawyer for White Star and Joslyn did not return a message seeking comment Thursday. Joslyn declined to comment, saying he had “nothing to say about it.”
AUCTION DELAYED
An auction was set for November, but was postponed when White Star filed for bankruptcy in Delaware. The case was later moved to the Southern District of Illinois, and in February the auction was given a green light.
An order by Bankruptcy Judge Laura K. Grundy noted that Joslyn decided not to attend a Feb. 13 hearing, as he had a “press conference in Tennessee related to a Titanic memorabilia display” and “made a strategic decision to put the interests of another venture ahead of the Debtor’s and not attend the trial.”
Neal Settergren, a lawyer for Mike’s, said that auction proceeds would be divided up by a federal judge.
During a tour for a reporter Thursday afternoon, Amy Marko said the old Casino Queen occupies more than one-and-a-half of the five end-to-end barges that make up the boatyard, which offers a drydock and a variety of repair and other services to river traffic.
She said it is hooked to electricity, so the boat doesn’t freeze up during extremely cold weather, and is regularly checked for problems. The once-iconic attraction, she said, receives little or no attention from passing river traffic.
Amy Marko said that from the outward appearance, the boat has experienced only the expected wear and tear.
Settergren, the lawyer for Mike’s, insisted that the hull and engines are sound. He said, “It’s not deteriorated or worthless.”
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