The ship the Dominion Monarch was commissioned in 1939 and worked the UK to Australia route via the Suez Canal. After only six months of that route she was drafted and repainted for use as a WWII troop transport. Later she became a "diaper ship," carrying military wives and families home. After the war she worked again as a liner until about 1957 when she could no longer compete with air travel. She was scheduled to be sold to a Japanese firm as scrap. Eddie Black, owner of Commercial Ship Repair Inc in Winslow, WA, and a member of the 1962 Seattle World's Fair organizing committee, suggested she be acquired and turned into a floating hotel for fairgoers. The Dominion Monarch Hotel did not get as much business as anticipated and was finally scrapped soon after the close of the World’s Fair.