Parts of SS United States removed for future museum, as rest is prepped for its watery end

The SS United States is moving ever-closer to its watery resting place off Florida’s Gulf Coast.

Okaloosa County and Destin-Fort Walton Beach announced that the forward smoke stack of the historic ocean liner was removed Monday. 

On Friday, its rear aft funnel and the remaining prop were also taken off.

Both stacks — both 65 feet tall, about the height of a six-story building — will be a feature of the SS United States Conservancy’s land-based museum, along with the liner’s propellers, radar mast, a cocktail bar and items and memorabilia from the ship that the conservancy had gathered and preserved over the years.

The rest of the 990-foot-long ship is going to be sunk off the coast of Florida, converting it from the fastest-ever passenger liner to cross the Atlantic Ocean into the world’s largest artificial reef.

After a long and tenuous stay in South Philly’s docks, the decommissioned ship was acquired from the conservancy by Okaloosa County for $1 million. The protracted send-off of the ship concluded in February, when it was guided by several tugboats down the Delaware River and along the East Coast until it reached Mobile, Ala., in March. There, it is being cleaned and stripped of remaining environmental hazards before it heads to Florida.

The ship, known affectionately by nautical enthusiasts as “America’s Flagship” and “the Big U,” had been on Philly’s waterfront since 1996, and was originally slated to depart last November. That trip was postponed indefinitely due to poor weather conditions. The move was rescheduled for February, then pushed back three more times, before the conditions were ideal to tow the vessel out into the Delaware and just under the Walt Whitman Bridge.

The stacks of the 990-foot vessel may no longer be visible from the IKEA parking lot in South Philly, but their new home is shaping up to be a prominent feature of the SS United States Museum and Visitor Experience, on the coast of Destin-Fort Walton Beach, based on renderings the conservancy revealed on Monday. 

New York-based museum and exhibit design firm Thinc Design, which has worked on the National September 11 Memorial Museum and the Empire State Building Observatory, is leading the museum design. 

“By incorporating iconic components from the historic ocean liner into an architecturally stunning, land-based museum, the SS United States will continue to excite and inspire future generations,” said Susan Gibbs, the conservancy’s president and granddaughter of the ship’s designer, William Francis Gibbs.

Until the new space is ready, fans of the ship can keep learning about it through the conservancy’s digital exhibitions on its website, the latest of which looks at food and dining on the ship.

In late 2025, the majority of the ship will be taken out about 20 miles from Destin-Fort-Walton Beach and sunk. The ship’s exact final location has not been decided yet, but Okaloosa County said the bottom of the ship will be at a depth of 180 feet and the upper deck will be at 55 feet.

”Our dive community is really excited,” Jennifer Adams, the tourism director for Okaloosa County, said in February. “We’re just a small fishing village. So to have her, you’ll be able to fish on her, spearfish, explore. And so they’re really, you know, rallying to that.”

The county has info on what’s currently in its artificial reef program, along with a map marking each site and 3D models of the other sunken vessels, on its website.