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Reported phenomena — as catalogued
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A 285-foot 1927 sternwheel riverboat permanently moored in Old Sacramento as a 44-room hotel and theater. Lore centers on a captain who watches performances from the theater balcony.
1000 Front Street, Sacramento, CA 95814
Research updated May 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$$
Standard hotel room rates apply for overnight stays; restaurant and Capital Stage theater priced separately. Walk-on viewing of the exterior gangway is free.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Riverfront gangway and shipboard decks; some interior passages on board are narrow.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1927 · 1927 sternwheel passenger steamboat, one of a matched pair with the Delta Queen · U.S. Navy service in World War II as USS Delta King (YHB-6, later YFB 55) · Listed on the National Register of Historic Places · Sank in Richmond, California in 1981; raised and restored in a five-year, $9 million project
The Delta King and its identical sister ship, the Delta Queen, were both christened on May 20, 1927. The vessels' steel hulls were built by William Denny & Brothers in Scotland and shipped to Stockton, California, for final assembly. The Delta King measures 285 feet long with a 58-foot beam, displaces 1,837 gross tons, and was outfitted with hardwood paneling, air conditioning and heating, and the amenities of a luxury riverboat.
From June 1927 through 1940, the Delta King made nightly 10½-hour runs between Sacramento and San Francisco. The evening departures featured Prohibition-era drinking, jazz bands, gambling, and fine dining; the river-commerce era ended when the Bay Bridge (1936) and Golden Gate Bridge (1937) made the Sacramento-to-San Francisco run economically obsolete.
The Navy requisitioned the Delta King in November 1940 and commissioned it as USS Delta King (YHB-6), later redesignated YFB 55 in 1944. The vessel served as a troop transport, naval barracks, and hospital ship on San Francisco Bay before being decommissioned on April 17, 1946. In the 1950s the boat was towed to Kitimat, British Columbia, where it served as worker housing during the construction of an Alcan aluminum plant.
The Delta King fell into disrepair after returning to California and sank in Richmond, California, in 1981 for unknown reasons; it was raised a year later with relatively minor damage. The Coyne family acquired the vessel and completed a five-year, $9 million restoration that returned it to service on May 20, 1989, exactly 62 years after its original christening.
Today the Delta King is permanently moored along the Old Sacramento waterfront at 1000 Front Street. It operates as a 44-room hotel with two restaurants (the Pilothouse and the Delta Bar & Grill) and is home to Capital Stage, a professional resident theater company that performs in an on-board theater. The vessel is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Sources
According to staff accounts reported by CBS Sacramento and aggregated by ghost-tour operators, the most consistently described presence aboard the Delta King is a male apparition believed to be the boat's original captain. Employees describe seeing him seated in the theater balcony during Capital Stage productions and hearing his footsteps overhead on the upper deck when they know the area is empty. On one occasion, employees reported that a glass of water tipped over onto a theater sound board with no one near it.
A second commonly cited entity is a small blonde girl seen in the boat's corridors. Multiple haunted-tourism directories (US Ghost Adventures, Haunted Rooms America, Very Local) describe similar accounts of disembodied footsteps, flickering lights, and sudden cold drafts in cabins and theater spaces.
The Delta King's haunted reputation is presented as folklore: the supporting documentation is staff-anecdote-tier rather than first-person investigative reporting, and the captain figure is not tied to a named, historically documented death aboard the vessel. The lore is consistently described across multiple Sacramento haunted-locations write-ups but should be read as tradition rather than verified incident.
Notable Entities
Book a stateroom aboard the permanently moored Delta King. Two restaurants (Pilothouse and Delta Bar & Grill), a resident theater (Capital Stage), and full hotel amenities.
Dine on board the Delta King in the Pilothouse Restaurant overlooking the Sacramento River.
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