The Grand Steamers to Boblo Island Carried a Civil-Rights Case to the Supreme Court

For nearly a century, a Detroit summer day could mean a trip to Boblo Island — and half the fun was getting there. Boblo was an amusement park on Bois Blanc Island in the Detroit River, just inside Canada. For generations of Detroit visitors, the day began aboard the SS Columbia or SS Ste. Claire. The grand excursion steamers carried crowds down the river, and the Columbia had a ballroom where people danced before the park came into view.

The ferry company established the park in 1898. It began as a picnic and recreation spot, then grew into the ride-filled park generations remember. Detroiters shortened the French name “Bois Blanc” to “Bob-Lo,” and the nickname followed the park. Even the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1948 opinion described the island as Detroit’s Coney Island.

One of those beautiful boats was also the setting for a more important story. In 1945, Sarah Elizabeth Ray boarded for a class outing. Company employees told her she could not sail because she was Black. She objected, left only after they threatened to remove her, wrote down their names, and refused the offered refund.

Michigan prosecuted the company under the state’s civil-rights law. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the conviction in 1948, holding that Michigan could apply that law even though the boat crossed into Canada. That precise ruling matters: the Court did not decide every question about discrimination in travel, but it did reject the company’s attempt to use foreign commerce as a shield here.

The boats stopped running in 1991, and the park closed after the 1993 season. Bois Blanc Island is now a residential community. Both Frank E. Kirby-designed steamers survived the park: Columbia is under restoration in Buffalo, and the Ste. Claire project continues in the Detroit area, where a Boblo museum opened on its main deck for the 2026 season.