St. Elmo Devonian News
Published: December 28, 2006

Happy Holidays to Everyone!
We hope that everyone had a great Christmas and will have the best New Year ever! We are working to make 2007 a very good year for all of St. Elmo and the surrounding area. We thought it was time to give an update on the President Riverboat project.
Now that we have St. Elmo as a home for this wonderful historic landmark, we have been working daily with either a city official, state official, attorney, engineer, consultant, university, construction company and some private investors. Yeas, we are proud to announce that we have some local investors that are now part of the President Riverboat project. This really makes us feel like we have great local support for the project.
I am sure most of you have seen that some land clearing has begun at Tower Lake. The city engineer has been surveying the area and soon plans to map out the sewer, water, lift station and dump station locations. We and city officials have met with some economic development people and have put in motion the paperwork for some of the available grants. The city official are researching additional ways to help fund the infrastructure portion of the project.
We also have been interviewing management companies capable of properly operating a project like this. Several of these management companies have sent representatives to St. Elmo where we have met and talked about the project with them. We have narrowed our selection down to 3 companies and are awaiting final proposals. We hope to have a management company in place by the end of January 2007. This will allow us to begin planning and promoting all the things that the President Riverboat has to offer even before she is totally rebuilt here.
We now have received firm bids for the dismantling, trucking and reassembly of the President. We have shopped several contractors who are capable of of performing the needed renovations and can build the additional facilities needed for the project. We have narrowed that selection down to 3 area contractors, subject to final bids.
We are also waiting for EPA clearance, surveying to be completed, land deal to be firmed up and making sure that all the financial obligations in regard to the project are met or can be met before we proceed to bring the boat over to the St. Elmo location. We are very excited to have come this far and feel like we have a good handle on the project, thank to many local officials and people of your community that have helped in bringing the President Riverboat to St. Elmo. We know we will still encounter many bumps and curves in the road and ask to to please bear with us. We want you to be proud to have the President Riverboat as part of your community and to be able to share her with future generations for many years to come.
We cannot give any firm dates as to when the project will be in operation. We are working daily on all aspects of the project and will give you more updates as we progress. Again we want to thank you for allowing us to be a part of your great community. Let's all work together in promoting St. Elmo, Illinois as a major tourist destination. There is already talk in the wind about many good things that can happen to your area and we know that the President Riverboat is only one of the many attractions that St. Elmo will soon have to offer.
From Our Family To Yours, The Campbells