The history of La Crosse is forged by the waterways that traverse western Wisconsin. Out on the upper Mississippi River, Ellis Inman knows this river well. His dad Bo was the captain of the Julia Belle Swain riverboat in the nineties.
The Julia Belle Swain is a paddlewheel steamboat that first cruised the Illinois River near Peoria. Everyone was sad to see her go when she pulled up anchor in Peoria and arrived in La Crosse in 1995. With its history of steamboat building this river city would be a perfect port for this famous queen of the river. Inman will tell you how amazing this boat is, having appeared in major motion pictures and even had a song written about her.
This steamboat is also where Inman felt at home on the water. As a child he spent lots of time on that boat and says at one point in time, he might have been the only kid on the Mississippi River working on a steamboat. He likes to joke that the Julia Belle Swain was his first love.
But not even “love” could save the Julia Belle. In 2008, the paddlewheel churned upriver for the very last time. Inman says, “It’s hard to believe how many people it’s touched. That’s exactly why everybody was so disappointed. Why they were so sad and hurt by the fact that the Julia Belle shuttered and was laid up.”
The steamboat remained dormant until the Julia Belle Swain Foundation set out to restore and preserve this piece of La Crosse history.
“We’re very lucky that the Julia Belle still even floats after the last several years of neglect. Anything that’s built to move and built to run gets destroyed by just sitting,” Inman says.
Then just like the muddy Mississippi River those renovation plans got muddied, millions of dollars spent, and mounting costs sank the project. It was a lot for people to deal with that the foundation was dissolving and the project would remain unfinished. For Inman it was personal, “The sadness, the fact that you’ll never get to experience that again.”
But Old Man River has a way of never giving up and always pushing forward. The river brings lots of people together for lots of reasons. Inman had not expected to come back to Wisconsin and work on the boat. This time new owners would put Inman at the helm of restoration efforts. “I guess I’ve never really felt any excitement quite like that, stepping back on the boat, knowing that we’re breathing life back into this project,” he says.
It was also a chance to revitalize the historic riverboat his dad once captained. Coming back to the river and all the memories made Inman feel like a kid again. For Inman every day is exciting. Every day is something new. By this point the Julia Belle hadn’t rolled on the river in 14 years. Despite past attempts at preservation years of standing idle prove unkind to the steamboat. When the renovations are finished, she will be different but at her core, at her heart the Julia Belle will still be a steamboat.
The one thing that won’t change is her 110-year-old steam engines. They’ve logged more than a million miles. Inman is looking forward to those steam engines roaring back to life. The sights, the sounds, the smells, it’s all part of it.
For La Crosse it’s more bittersweet and for Inman it is quite emotional. In December of 2023 a barge escorted the Julia Belle Swain down river as the city bid farewell to the riverboat. The makeover will continue and eventually the Julia Belle Swain will have a new riverfront home… but not in La Crosse.
Inman said, “When we get to Nashville, we’ll be a wedding destination of the South. It’s already a huge wedding destination, but once this boat’s there, we’ll be offering fully curated weddings.
Regardless of her home the Julia Belle Swain will still be one of America’s finest examples of a stern wheel steamboat. As for Inman, he has no intention of ever leaving his “first love.”
“I don’t know that I’ll ever say goodbye again. I’m looking forward to a long future either on the Julia Belle, or at least close enough that I can hear her whistle.”