Saturday, May 14, 2011

Lost Riverboat in Shartlesville, Pennsylvania

Marooned not too far from the wondrous attraction known as Roadside America lies an old riverboat looking oddly out of place. The dilapidated boat lies detached in an open field, far from the days of entertaining guests off the coast of New York and New Jersey. Originally the riverboat was built in Minnesota and was named the "Suwannee Belle." The riverboat spent slightly more then a decade elating tourists from all over the world. It was eventually decommissioned in 1991. After a failed attempt as a restaurant the "Suwannee Belle" sat in a New Jersey storage unit until 2003. At this point the riverboat was purchased and was finding a new home in rural Shartlesville, Pennsylvania. The original owner had planned to use the riverboat as a tiki bar, unfortunately his dreams never came to fruition. Since then it has sat in this remote field never fully living up to the potential it seemingly had just a few short years ago. The new owners of the nearby restaurant continue to pay homage to the lost riverboat, having named their venture the Riverboat Saloon.

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