Before the Queen Mary docked in Long Beach, the legendary ocean liner ruled the Atlantic

The Queen Mary in Long Beach is many things — a popular tourist attraction, a music festival backdrop, and a source of haunted tales.

But before it permanently docked on Southern California’s shores, the Queen Mary was a symbol of British luxury and prowess. Nearly 100 years ago, the record-setting ship made its mark as a feat of engineering, commanding attention and awe on the ocean.

The ship’s origins

The Queen Mary sprang from a desire to bring something new to the waters.

The company Cunard Line wanted a set of fancy new ocean liners to replace the ships on its North Atlantic route.

In 1930, construction started on what was known as Hull No. 534 in a Scotland shipyard renowned for its building skills. This shipyard was the only one in Great Britain set up for design experiments. With the aim of being superfast and nimble on the water, crews ran over 7,000 performance tests with wax models.

But the ship almost didn’t materialize, as Cunard was hit hard by the Great Depression. The company was strapped financially, and the ship was estimated to cost about 4 million pounds, about $100 million in today's money. So, the British government stepped in with a loan to cover the cost to complete construction. The company was forced to merge with a rival in 1934 as part of the funding agreement.

Over 300,000 people were involved in the ship’s creation. It had an art deco interior with bright colors, geometric shapes, and different textures like wood and glass and velvet. Some mocked the ship for this kind of old money, conservative take on luxury sea travel, but the designers were trying to appeal to the world.

According to the Scotland design museum, V&A Dundee, a promotional brochure described it as pairing a cosmopolitan sense of culture “with the comfort of a country home.” It was also the first British liner to have a small synagogue onboard, largely in response to rising antisemitism in Germany.

As an upper-class British passenger ship, the royal family was quite involved. This was during the time of Queen Elizabeth II’s grandparents, King George V and Queen Mary. Family members would visit the ship to check on progress.

Hull No. 534 was originally going to be named in honor of the King’s grandmother, Queen Victoria, according to Washington Post editor Felix Morley in an autobiography. He alleged a Cunard executive told him why the name changed — swearing him to secrecy until his death.

Cunard’s custom was to give ships names ending with “ia.” But when the King was informed of the goal to name it after Victoria, considered “Britain’s most illustrious Queen,” he smiled and replied: “Mary will be pleased.”

The Queen Mary’s maiden voyage was a 470-mile round trip in May 1936, from one part of England to another. And those thousands of tests paid off. The ship was incredibly quick, at its best taking just four days to cross the Atlantic.

It set a record for fastest transatlantic crossing within its first year, cutting an hour and 25 minutes from the four-day journey.

The Gray Ghost

The ship would ferry thousands of wealthy passengers and millions in goods until World War II. Wartime stripped the Queen Mary of its opulence and beauty — but it would earn a historic spot in the war.

The ship was converted to carry not civilians but large numbers of troops. To make enough space, one of the dining rooms was converted to a large mess hall, and even the drawing room was turned into a sick bay for soldiers. Its sleek black, red, and white exterior was repainted gray, which eventually got it the nickname “Gray Ghost” for its speed and agility.

The Queen Mary arrives in New York City with thousands of U.S. troops on board on June 20, 1945.

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Courtesy Naval History and Heritage Command

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As the war continued, the Queen Mary was modified multiple times to carry more troops, P.O.W'.s and crew. In 1942, the expanded capacity made it the first ship with over 10,000 people on board — and it likely still holds the record for most people on a ship at one time (16,683).

In total, the Queen Mary transported 810,000 troops, contributing hugely to the war effort.

The ship’s speed also drew Hitler’s ire. It outran German boats so many times that the dictator put a $250,000 reward out to anyone who could sink it. The danger was so high that passengers were told to carry a life preserver, water canteen and rations on them at all times, according to a nurse’s personal account.

One time the ship encountered a rogue wave so fierce that it almost destroyed the ship. Fifteen thousand American troops were on board when a wall of water dozens of feet tall struck the side of the ship, almost capsizing it and flooding the decks. Some reports say it was up to 90 feet high. Crews were able to steady the Queen Mary and no passengers were lost.

The ship’s last wartime voyage was in 1946 to Southampton, England. It stayed there for months as crews restored it back to passenger service, painting it again with that iconic black, white and red. Pieces of its traditional interior had to be recovered from ports around the world.

Retiring to Long Beach

The Queen Mary continued passenger service for the next 20 years — but the ship was on borrowed time.

At the turn of the 1950s, sea travel popularity dipped because of the jet age. The Queen Mary was aging and losing money. Its era as the top ocean liner on the Atlantic was at an end, so Cunard was ready to sell the ship.

This was Long Beach’s opportunity. The city was itching for a major attraction — so why not a famous ocean liner? There were 18 bids in total for the ship, including an offer from New York to turn it into a floating Brooklyn high school, but Long Beach won. In 1967, the city paid $3.5 million for the Queen Mary to become its historic maritime museum and hotel.

The ocean liner 'RMS Queen Mary' at Southampton Docks, UK, October 1967. Shortly after she sailed to a permanent mooring at Long Beach in California.

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Evening Standard/Getty Images

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Hulton Archive

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The ship’s “last great cruise” left England for California on October 31 that year. The ship was packed with famous people for the 39 day trip, which crossed the Canary Islands, the eastern coast of Brazil, down to Cape Horn and around to the U.S.’s west coast. The ship faced some trouble in the hotter weather. It got so hot on board that a chef died from heat exhaustion and was buried at sea.

Still, it was a celebratory journey. Crews threw hundreds of bottles stuffed with notes overboard, according to former Long Beach councilmember Renee Simon. The notes asked would-be readers to reach out with their location in exchange for a Queen Mary memento.

Chief deck steward Joe Allen also was among the crew. He wrote a poem called “The Mary”. Line by line, he affectionately recounted its accolades in war and peace:

To injured seamen broken in fall
She dashed to their rescue at the S.O.S call
The time has come for this Old Beauty
To retire from Atlantic duty
Setting sail for Long Beach in atmosphere terse
She will "finish with engines", her grand crew disperse
The toast is ‘The Queen,’ the end of an era
Here’s to the ‘Mary,’ the greatest ship ever

It was supposed to stay private, but “The Mary” ended up being printed in the ship’s farewell booklet and read aloud by the captain. Allen’s words made people cry.

Thousands of spectators welcomed the Queen Mary when it arrived in Long Beach on December 9, 1967. It’s been a peaceful, if not quiet retirement — millions more have gotten to know the ship on land than were ever able to visit at sea.