The Colonel Wright was the first steamboat to operate on the Columbia River above The Dalles in the parts of the Oregon Country that later became the U.S. states of Oregon, Washington and Idaho. She was the first steamboat to run on the Snake River.[2] She was named after Colonel (later General) George Wright, an army commander in the Indian Wars in the Oregon Country in the 1850s. She was generally called the Wright during her operating career.
The Colonel Wright was launched October 24, 1858 at the mouth of the Deschutes River and began to run in early in 1859. The Colonel Wright was 110ft (34m) long, 21ft (6.4m) beam, and had 5.0ft (1.5m) depth of hold.[3] The launching of the Colonel Wright was an important step in the settlement of the Inland Empire, Idaho and eastern Oregon, and in consequence, she made a fortune for her owners before others could interfere with the trade. Her profit potential was greatly enhanced by the discovery of gold in Idaho in the spring of 1859.[4]
She was built by R. R. Thompson and E. F. Coe, who had Government transport contracts on the middle and upper Columbia River. They had been carrying freight for Fort Walla Walla from Celilo Falls in bateaux at a rate of $100 per ton. Colonel Jordan, the chief quartermaster, encouraged them to construct the steamer. When she was completed they reduced the rates to $80 and made three round trips a week throughout the summer, taking full loads both ways and quickly growing rich. The Colonel Wright made her first trip in April 1859. The Colonel Wright was first commanded by Capt. Leonard White, with Capt. Ephraim W. Baughman (1835–1923), pilot.[3]
Captain White was a veteran of navigation on the upper Willamette River, and later became known as one of the most intrepid of all steamboat captains. When he was first assigned to the Wright, Captain White hung a square sail on the steamboat as a precaution in case of mechanical failure.[2] When he took the Wright on her first trip up the Snake River, and when she hit a snag near the mouth of the Palouse River, she almost sank before Captain White could beach her. Bailed out and repaired, the Colonel Wright was able to continue her journey. White received a salary of $500 per month, a huge amount of money for the time,[4] and retained the position for several years.[3][4]
Top step on the giant staircase
Transportation up the Columbia River was like traversing a giant staircase, and the Colonel Wright was the first boat to run on the top step. This of course was the key to her money-making ability. The Columbia was never freely navigable in its natural state. There were many barriers of shallow water and rapids, the most important of which for navigation purposes were the Cascades of the Columbia in the Columbia Gorge, followed by a navigable run to the east known as the "middle Columbia" which terminated at The Dalles. A long portage there began around a series of rapids, generally known by the name of the most important one, which was Celilo Falls. The portage route ended at Celilo, Oregon where the "upper Columbia" began. Steamboats could run from Celilo to Wallula where a stage line, and later a railroad ran to Walla Walla, then the principal settlement in the Inland Empire. It was this, the upper step of the river, on which the Colonel Wright enjoyed a monopoly for a short time as the sole steamboat on the river.
Leonard White, first captain of the Colonel Wright
Downriver transport could be quite fast for the day. A traveler bound from Walla Walla would take the stage to Wallula, board the Colonel Wright or another steamer, then head downriver to Celilo. After a bumpy ride over the portage, the traveler would arrive at The Dalles where an overnight stay would be necessary at one of the hotels. The next morning the traveler would board a steamboat on the middle river, perhaps the Oneonta, for a morning run down to the Upper Cascades. There again the traveler disembarked, usually on the favored north side, and rode on the portage railway to the landing at the Lower Cascades. There, a steamer, possibly the Wilson G. Hunt, then ran downriver to Portland, which the traveler reached some thirty hours after leaving Walla Walla, a feat which was considered remarkable at that time.[3] The genius of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company was to control all the boats on all the steps of the staircase, and the portages too, thus achieving a monopoly on transport in the days before there were roads or railways capable of mounting any competition.[4] The Wright was simply superb at making money, earning as much as $2,500 a trip in passenger fares alone.[2]
Inland exploration
In May 1859, Colonel Wright made a scouting trip fifty miles up the Snake River, which joins the Columbia not far to the north of Wallula. Colonel Wright was the first steamboat to reach Lewiston, Idaho, 140 miles[4] upriver from Wallula. In 1861 she ascended the Clearwater River to within two miles of the forks, accomplishing the downstream run of over 300 miles to Wallula in less than 24 hours. Thompson and Coe made so much money with the Wright that in the spring of 1860 they built a larger and more powerful[4] steamer, the Tenino on the same route, afterward pooling both steamers with the Oregon Steam Navigation Company.
Dance hall transport
In the spring of 1862, the Colonel Wright was engaged in the transport of a somewhat unusual kind, and had reached the wharf at Fort Walla Walla, near Wallula and the mouth of the Walla Walla River, on a trip to Lewiston, where she waited for a few days for the ice to clear upriver. In the words of Fritz Timmen, she was
burdened with all the plunder necessary to build and equip a first-class saloon, gambling hall, and honky-tonk. The passenger list was liberally sprinkled with gamblers, bartenders, and an attractive collection of dance-hall hostesses and vaudeville entertainers. ... The word spread among the woman-hungry bachelors on nearby ranches that the Wright's most important cargo wore perfume. The boat was besieged. In panic, Captain White cast off for the more isolated shelter of Ice Harbor. His strategy failed. By canoe, raft, and rowboat, amorous single males for miles around sought out the steamer. By the time the troupe was delivered at Lewiston, its manager had to send back to Portland for additional femaie personnel. But ranch life in Franklin, Whitman, and Walla Walla counties was a lot less lonely from then on.[5]
Captain White relieved of command
About 1863, after Wright came under control of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, the firm's president, Capt. John C. Ainsworth, concluded that Captain White's remuneration was excessive for a steamboat master. Captain White did not agree, refused to take a pay cut, and hence was succeeded by Capt. Thomas Stump, from the Sacramento River, at a salary of $300 per month.[2] Coe, Felton, and J. H. D. Gray also had charge of the steamer at different times.[3]
Captain Stump takes the Wright far up the Snake River
Wright made her last trip in the spring of 1865, in command of Capt. Thomas Stump, with Capt. William Gray as pilot, who attempted to take her above the Snake River rapids to Farewell Bend.[2] She was eight days in making a distance of about 100 miles, then headed down stream and returned to Lewiston in less than five hours.[2] Captain Stump reported his explorations as having been of no practical value; but he had taken a steamer farther into the heart of the regions lying to the east than any craft had ever gone before.[3]
Dismantled in 1865
In August 1865, the Colonel Wright's hull, worn out from the upriver trips, was dismantled.
Notes
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Affleck, Edward L., A Century of Paddlewheelers in the Pacific Northwest, the Yukon, and Alaska, at 14, Alexander Nicolls Press, Vancouver, BC 2000
1 2 3 4 5 6 Mills, Randall V., Sternwheelers up Columbia -- A Century of Steamboating in the Oregon Country, at 80-81, 84-86, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE (1977 reprint of 1947 ed.) ISBN0-8032-5874-7
1 2 3 4 5 6 Timmen, Fritz, Blow for the Landing -- A Hundred Years of Steam Navigation On the Waters of the West, Caxton Printers, Caldwell, ID 1973 ISBN0-87004-221-1
The Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company (OR&N) was a railroad that operated a rail network of 1,143 miles (1,839 km) running east from Portland, Oregon, United States, to northeastern Oregon, northeastern Washington, and northern Idaho. It operated from 1896 as a consolidation of several smaller railroads.
The Oregon Steam Navigation Company (O.S.N.) was an American company incorporated in 1860 in Washington with partners J. S. Ruckle, Henry Olmstead, and J. O. Van Bergen. It was incorporated in Washington because of a lack of corporate laws in Oregon, though it paid Oregon taxes.
Many steamboats operated on the Columbia River and its tributaries, in the Pacific Northwest region of North America, from about 1850 to 1981. Major tributaries of the Columbia that formed steamboat routes included the Willamette and Snake rivers. Navigation was impractical between the Snake River and the Canada–US border, due to several rapids, but steamboats also operated along the Wenatchee Reach of the Columbia, in northern Washington, and on the Arrow Lakes of southern British Columbia.
The Willamette River flows northwards down the Willamette Valley until it meets the Columbia River at a point 101 miles from the Pacific Ocean, in the U.S. state of Oregon.
Celilo Canal was a canal connecting two points of the Columbia River between the states of Oregon and Washington, U.S. just east of The Dalles.
The steamboat Hassalo operated from 1880 to 1898 on the Columbia River and Puget Sound. Hassalo became famous for running the Cascades of the Columbia on May 26, 1888 at a speed approaching 60 miles (97 km) an hour. This vessel should not be confused with other steamboats with the same or a similar name, including Hassalo (1899) and Hassaloe (1857).
R. R. Thompson was a large sternwheel steamboat designed in the classic Columbia River style. She was named after Robert R. Thompson, one of the shareholders of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, the firm that built the vessel.
The sidewheeler Idaho was a steamboat that ran on the Columbia River and Puget Sound from 1860 to 1898. There is some confusion as to the origins of the name; many historians have proposed it is the inspiration for the name of the State of Idaho. Considerable doubt has been cast on this due to the fact that it is unclear if the boat was named before or after the idea of 'Idaho' as a territory name was proposed. John Ruckel also allegedly stated he had named the boat after a Native American term meaning 'Gem of the Mountains' he got from a mining friend from what is now Colorado territory. This steamer should not be confused with the many other vessels of the same name, including the sternwheeler Idaho built in 1903 for service on Lake Coeur d'Alene and the steamship Idaho of the Pacific Coast Steamship Line which sank near Port Townsend, Washington.
Nez Perce Chief was a steamboat that operated on the upper Columbia River, in Washington, U.S., specifically the stretch of the river that began above the Celilo Falls. Her engines came from the Carrie Ladd, an important earlier sternwheeler. Nez Perce Chief also ran up the Snake River to Lewiston, Idaho, a distance of 141 miles from the mouth of the Snake River near Wallula, Wash. Terr.
Annie Faxon was a steamboat that was built by the Oregon Steam Navigation Company. She is chiefly remembered now for the catastrophic boiler explosion in 1893 that destroyed her and killed eight people on board.
The Belle of Oregon City, generally referred to as Belle, was built in 1853, and was the first iron steamboat built on the west coast of North America.
James D. Miller was a steamboat captain in the Pacific Northwest from 1851 to 1903. He became well known for his long length of service, the large number of vessels he commanded, and the many different geographical areas in which he served.
The Tenino was the second steamboat to run on the Columbia River above Celilo Falls and on the Snake River. Following a reconstruction or major salvage in 1876 this vessel was named the New Tenino.
The steamboat Shoalwater was the sixth steamer to operate on the upper Willamette River, which refers to the part of the river above Willamette Falls at Oregon City. In a short career of six years, Shoalwater was renamedFenix, Franklin, and Minnie Holmes. Shoalwater was the first steamboat in Oregon to suffer a boiler explosion, although no fatalities resulted.
Teaser was a steamboat which ran on the Columbia River and Puget Sound from 1874 to 1880.
Harvest Queen was the name of two stern-wheel steamboat built and operated in Oregon. Both vessels were well known in their day and had reputations for speed, power, and efficiency.The first Harvest Queen, widely considered one of the finest steamers of its day, was constructed at Celilo, Oregon, which was then separated from the other portions of the navigable Columbia River by two stretches of difficult to pass rapids.
The People's Transportation Company operated steamboats on the Willamette River and its tributaries, the Yamhill and Tualatin rivers, in the State of Oregon from 1862 to 1871. For a brief time this company operated steamers on the Columbia River, and for about two months in 1864, the company operated a small steamer on the Clackamas River.
Imhaha was a stern-wheel steamboat which operated on the Snake River in 1903. The steamer was built, launched, placed in service, and wrecked within a single year. The rapids on the Snake river had only rarely been surmounted by a steamboat, and generally only with the aid of a steel cable for lining used to winch the entire boat upstream through the rapids. After only a few trips, Imnaha was destroyed in Mountain Sheep rapids, just downstream from the mining settlement of Eureka, on the Oregon side of the river.
Relief was a stern-wheel steamboat that operated on the Columbia and Willamette rivers and their tributaries from 1906 to 1931. Relief had been originally built in 1902, on the Columbia at Blalock, Oregon, in Gilliam County, and launched and operated as Columbia, a much smaller vessel. Relief was used primarily as a freight carrier, first for about ten years in the Inland Empire region of Oregon and Washington, hauling wheat and fruit, and after that was operated on the lower Columbia river.
Mountain Gem was a sternwheel-driven steamboat that operated on the Snake and Columbia rivers from 1904 to 1912, when the machinery was removed and installed in a different, newly built steamboat. Mountain Gem remained on the U.S. merchant vessel registry until 1922 or later. Although Mountain Gem was not abandoned until 1924, there is no evidence it was used after 1912.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
