| MAZIE KREBS THE LADY WHO DESIGNED
THE ADMIRAL Krebs, the woman who designed most of the
Admiral and the interior of the S. S. President
excursion boat. In the late 1930's, she spent
many hours on the Admiral during its construction.
She found that steel wool was a slightly uncom-
fortable occupational hazard. It was constantly
found in the hem of her dress by the end of the day.
She is quoted as saying, "We used steel wool for
tufting the leatherette we put on the walls so we
didn't have a fire hazard." "The men would work
with it on the benches. I always wore dresses when
I was there--never slacks. The hem of my dress
would drag over the benches, and I would get small
pieces of steel wool in it. Then the steel wool
would work its way into my stockings and, oh, would
I be itchy."
Krebs returned to the Admiral after many years for
its reopening as a guest of the State of St. Louis
economic development campaign. She attended
a public reopening ceremony which was sponsored
by the S.S. Admiral Partners, the group that owns
the boat and is completing its $30 million-plus
renovation. She also attended the State of St. Louis
Party on the Admiral a couple of days before the
reopening. She hadn't been on the Admiral since
shortly after its first excursion from the riverfront in
June of 1940. She does know of the extensive
deterioration of the Admiral in recent years. She is happy
to know that it is being renovated, and she wishes those
people well.
The story of how Krebs got involved with designing
first the interior of the President and several years
later, the interior and exterior of the Admiral, is
about as gutsy and revolutionary as her designs for
the two steam-powered passenger boats. They
were sleek and ultramodern for the times--a radical
change from the gilded, gingerbread-type excursion
boats that had plied the rivers for decades.
The day after the Admiral was launched, it was
stated that, "Old-time rivermen must have turned over
in their graves on the day that the Admiral left
the dock and was finally launched. On the river was
a ship that they probably never dreamed of being
all steel, streamlined and air conditioned. And to
make it worse on the old-timers, the ship was
designed by a mere slip of a girl, Miss Mazie Krebs.
"The ship is the S. S. Admiral, which made its initial
voyage with a capacity crowd of excursionists, who
spent most of their time wandering from vast room
to vast room, exclaiming at sleek light tubing,
sweeping staircases and functional furniture.
Krebs was born in St. Louis and spent most of her
childhood traveling the country with her theatrical
family. Her parents divorced when she was a baby,
and her mother, aunt and uncle formed a vaudeville
group. Krebs and her mother lived in south St.
Louis when they were not on the road. She attended
grade school in St. Louis and then went to
Cleveland High, where she won a scholarship to the
Washington University School of Fine Arts.
Krebs said that she taught dancing to help pay
college expenses. But she was eager to begin a
career as an artist, and she left the university to
become a fashion illustrator for the Famous-Barr
department stores. After a year or so at the
Famous-Barr, she landed a job that would lead her
to the President and the Admiral. She joined the
staff of Taylor-Rebholz, a firm that specialized in
graphic design work for large displays, outdoor
posters, billboards and other types of advertising.
Streckfus Steamers, Inc., the firm that built the
President and the Admiral, was a client at Taylor-
Rebholz, and Krebs did some work for Streckfus
while she was there. She was in Chicago in the
early 1930's, designing large exhibits for the up-
coming World's Fair of 1933, when Captain Joseph
Streckfus, president of the Streckfus Steamers,
came to visit. He was planning a radical new
excursion boat--the President--and looking for
someone to design it. "Miss Krebs said, that may-
be the firm I am working for could possibly design
it", but the firm was afraid of the job, because it was
a floating thing. That didn't scare Miss Krebs
though, so she asked Captain Joe if she could
submit some sketches. "She found out later that he
said 'yes' because he didn't know how to say 'no'
to her. Krebs worked for about a month, mostly
on weekends, at putting together sketches for the
President's interior. Miss Krebs said that she did
what she thought would go into the boat and she
knew that she could do it. She found out later that there
were 20 other firms competing with her for the job. All backgrounds are the sole property of me
(Fiddlinsue). They are not to leave this site.
The above story was taken from the
Streckfus Steamers magazine-dated 1934-1935 The images used on this page were saved
in a scrapbook that my mother had compiled as
a youngster. There was no dates or information
as to where she obtained them from. ©Fiddlinsue--October 18, 2002
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