In 1922, Capt. Annis Boggs commissioned Ward Engineering of Charleston to build a floating dance hall, a double-deck excursion barge with a dance floor. In honor of Boggs’s son, Edward, it was christened the Edwards Moonlight. The Moonlight, originally measuring 101 by 26 feet, was towed by steamboats, usually the Shamrock No. 2. It was docked near the north end of Charleston’s South Side Bridge, in the city’s downtown. The Moonlight traveled from there on dance cruises up and down the Kanawha River.
When Vice President Charles Curtis came on September 27, 1932, to dedicate the new Marmet Locks, he rode the Edwards Moonlight from Marmet back to Charleston. The Moonlight, towed on this occasion by the steamboat F. M. Staunton, carried more than 200 people to the dedication.
Armco Steel bought the Moonlight in the mid-1930s and used it as an office and landing barge in Huntington. It was rehulled in 1948, increasing the dimensions to 112 by 30 feet. From 1955 to 1983, Amherst Industries leased the Moonlight as a dispatch barge located in Huntington, then sold it to Arch Minerals. This company owned the barge from 1983 to 1988. In 1988, Ken Joseph of Ashland, Kentucky, bought it with the hopes to renovate it as a restaurant. The Edwards Moonlight was brought home to the Kanawha River in 1999 and operated until 2003 as the General Seafood restaurant in South Charleston. The Edwards Moonlight was later moved to Charleston, where it began operating as The Barge restaurant in 2008. In 2022 it left Charleston for Parkersburg.
This Article was written by Jean Simpson
Last Revised on April 10, 2022
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Simpson, Jean "Edwards Moonlight." e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia. 10 April 2022. Web. 27 November 2024.
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