If Wilmington officials had their way 60 years ago, the Port City would have another showcase boat alongside Battleship North Carolina on the Cape Fear River.
The Feb. 18, 1964, edition of the Wilmington Morning Star, reported the boat Potomac was eyed by the city for purchase. As the USS Potomac, it was the presidential yacht for President Franklin D. Roosevelt and dubbed in the article as a “floating White House.”
By 1964, the boat was decommissioned and purchased by Elvis Presley, who gave it to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, for fundraising purposes.
Bill Mitcham, executive secretary of the Southeastern North Carolina Beach Association, wired a message to St. Jude founder and actor Danny Thomas of Wilmington’s intentions to buy the yacht.
Mitcham said it would be a “fitting companion” to Battleship North Carolina, which arrived in Wilmington less than two years earlier.
Instead, the yacht was sold to someone else for $65,000.
In the early 1980s, the Potomac had deteriorated and was sinking. Refloated by the Navy, preservation efforts began by the Port of Oakland in California, which bought the ship just days before being sold for scrap.