The U.S.S. Inaugural was a minesweeper that saw action briefly in the Pacific during World War II. After the war she spent 20 years in mothballs until she was brought to the St. Louis riverfront as a floating museum in 1968. In 1973, Grandma Cele took two of her grandsons downtown to see the Inaugural.
At the time of our visit, I was 12 and Jeff was 11, and as you can tell we enjoyed our visit as 11- and 12-year-old boys would to such an exhibit. The Inaugural remained on the St. Louis riverfront for the next 20 years, but that changed in August 1993. During 'the flood of '93', the Inaugural broke loose from its moorings. It started drifting downstream and somehow suffered a breach to her hull. She took on water and eventually sunk resting on her port side about a mile down from the Arch on the Missouri side of the river. It was determined that it wasn't feasible to raise and restore her, so there she rests today. When the river is very low you can walk right up to her, but she no longer resembles the ship you see in the video above.
53 years have passed since Jeff, and I visited the Inaugural. And I don't think I speak out of turn when I say we both have aged much better than she has.