In January 1964, a famous old boat was about to be cut up for scrap.
It was the USS Potomac. Starting in 1936 it had been the yacht of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and people called it “The Floating White House.” By the 1960s, though, its glory days looked like they were behind it. The March of Dimes had turned it down because of the upkeep, and it was in danger of being scrapped.
Then Elvis Presley stepped in.
He bought the Potomac at auction in Long Beach, California, for $55,000. Elvis fan sources say his manager, Colonel Parker, placed the bid. According to Collectors Weekly, Elvis “didn’t like the idea of seeing FDR’s yacht chopped into pieces for scrap.”
But Elvis didn’t keep it.
On February 14, 1964, at Long Beach, he handed the yacht over to entertainer Danny Thomas. Thomas had founded St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, and he accepted the Potomac for the hospital. A wire photo from that day carried the caption “FDR YACHT PRESENTED TO MEMPHIS HOSPITAL.”
This clip looks back at the day Elvis donated the yacht to Danny Thomas and St. Jude.
Elvis giving FDR’s old yacht to Danny Thomas for St. Jude
St. Jude planned to use the Potomac to raise money for the hospital, and it soon sold the yacht.
After that, the Potomac went through a string of owners. In 1980 it was seized by U.S. Customs. Then, in March 1981, the old presidential yacht sank in 35 feet of water at Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay, after broken pilings pierced its hull.
FDR’s Floating White House, the boat Elvis had saved from the scrapyard, was sitting on the bottom of the bay. Seventeen years after that day on the Long Beach pier, it looked like the end of the line.
It didn’t stay there. The Navy Reserve raised it, and in April 1981 the Port of Oakland bought it for just $15,000. It was, as Collectors Weekly noted, “also the only bid.” Elvis had paid more than three times that much. This short documentary tells the story of how the yacht sank and the long effort to restore it.
A short documentary on how the Potomac sank and was brought back
What came next took years of hard work. In 1985 Congress gave $2.5 million toward restoring it, and FDR’s son James Roosevelt chaired the group behind the effort. The Potomac became a National Historic Landmark in 1990. It made its first restored cruise in 1993 and opened to the public in April 1995.
Today it’s berthed in Oakland, California, and you can still go aboard for a dockside tour or take a cruise out on the bay. This short video shows the Potomac as it looks now.
A tour of FDR’s “Floating White House” today
So if you ever take that cruise, you’ll be riding on the same yacht Elvis bought at a Long Beach auction in 1964, the one that later spent time on the bottom of San Francisco Bay before people decided it was worth saving a second time.