Twilight on the Bay: The Excursion Boat Empire of B. B. Wills tells the story of one mans effort to sail against the tide. In 1934 when Benjamin Bowling Wills purchased a fifty-year-old Hudson River steamboat to bring passengers to an amusement park he owned on the Potomac River south of Washington, D.C., even he didnt realize that he would soon abandon the amusement park and spend the next thirty-odd years running excursion boats in Washington, Baltimore, Boston, and even Houston, Texas.
Relying on the private papers and correspondence of B. B. Wills himself, the author traces the evolution of Willss empire from the Potomac River on to the Chesapeake Bayand eventually to cities up and down the East.By Brian J. CudahyBorn in Brooklyn, New York, Brian Cudahy is one of the countrys leading waterway and transportation historians. Born and educated in Brooklyn, he earned a masters and PhD in philosophy and went to work for Boston College.
Cudahy taught in the field of transportation and later worked in the marketing department of a local transit system. These led him to a position in research and policy with the Federal Transit Administration in Washington, D.C. He is the author of The Cruise Ship Phenomenon in North America and Twilight on the Bay: The Excursion Boat Empire of B. B. Wills.72 b/w illustrationsThe Excursion Boat Empire of B.B. Wills72 b/w illustrations