Oh, You Say You Like Riverboats? How About the Tall Stacks in Cincinnati

The Tall Stacks come to Cincinnati on some irregular schedule and, whenever it happens, people go straight for some time travel since the Riverfront must have looked quite similar to this well over a hundred years ago.  (Maybe the sepia is a bit cheesy but I liked the effect for the old-timey vibe)


Riverboat Row awakens slowly into the foggy morning.

As the sun rises, the Tall Stacks emerge from within it.

When the Sun does come up, it comes quickly and we find we really have gone back a century or so.

As you see, Kahn's has a long history in Cincinnati.


The riverboats stand by for the crowd and it will be a big one.  We see the sailors here, dwarfed the immensity of the paddle wheels.

The Delta Queen has been based in Cincinnati for an enormous number of years and the city has a deep love for her.

There was the Mississippi Queen which came much later, was much bigger, and all manner of wonderful things but there was a story, unconfirmed, that she could not make it back up-river to port in Cincinnati.  That doesn't make a whole lot of sense to us since she was attending the festival as well.


Big ones, little ones, so many come for Tall Stacks.  Attendees can buy rides on any of the riverboats for cruising the festival and many, many people do that to get a real taste of the flavor of living on the river.

After a long day of time traveling, people take a little break to kick back to enjoy the vibe of it.  Perhaps they are waiting to sail just as they would have done a century ago.  (I did not know these people but they looked so good so how should I resist)

In time, the Sun starts going back down but the riverboats are still beautiful on the Riverfront.

One more look at Riverboat Row but without the sepia effect this time.

Note:  I have published these pictures previously as a feature page on My Duck Soup but they haven't been previously presented this way here on the blog.  I'm not even sure when I shot the photographs but it must have been in the middle of the 90's sometime.  All of the photographs were captured using a traditional Minolta Maxxum.  It was a bit more techno than I really wanted but it did good work and there were multiple cool features, among them the relatively-small motor drive to auto-wind the film.  (WIKI:  Minolta Maxxum 7000)