APL, formerly called American President Lines Ltd., is an American container shipping company that is a subsidiary of French shipping company CMA CGM. It operates an all-container ship fleet, including nine U.S. flagged container vessels.
The Pacific Mail Steamship Company was founded April 18, 1848, as a joint stock company under the laws of the State of New York by a group of New York City merchants. Incorporators included William H. Aspinwall, Edwin Bartlett, Henry Chauncey, Mr. Alsop, G.G. Howland and S.S. Howland.
The Pacific Coast Railway was a 3 ft narrow gauge railway on the Central Coast of California. The original 10-mile (16 km) link from San Luis Obispo to Avila Beach and Port Harford was later built southward to Santa Maria and Los Olivos, with branches to Sisquoc and Guadalupe.
The Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company (OR&N) was a rail and steamboat transport company 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.
SS Pacific was a wooden sidewheel steamer built in 1850 most notable for its sinking in 1875 as a result of a collision southwest of Cape Flattery, Washington. Pacific had an estimated 275 passengers and crew aboard when she sank. Only two survived. Among the casualties were several notable figures, including the vessel's captain at the time of the disaster, Jefferson Davis Howell (1846–1875), the brother-in-law of former Confederate President Jefferson Davis. The sinking of Pacific killed more people than any other marine disaster on the West Coast at the time.
The steamboat Rosalie operated from 1893 to 1918 as part of the Puget Sound Mosquito Fleet, also operating out of Victoria, B.C. In 1898, Rosalie went north with many other Puget Sound steamboats to join the Klondike Gold Rush.
The Alaska Steamship Company was formed on August 3, 1894. While it originally set out to ship passengers and fishing products, the Alaska Steamship Company began shipping mining equipment, dog sleds, and cattle at the outbreak of the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897. The company was purchased by the Alaska Syndicate and merged with the Northwestern Steamship Company in 1909, but retained its name, and the fleet was expanded to 18 ships. During World War II, the government took over the company's ships. When the war ended, the company struggled to compete with the new Alaska Highway for passengers and freight. It discontinued passenger service altogether in 1954 and shut down operations in 1971.
Active was a survey ship that served in the United States Coast Survey, a predecessor of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, from 1852 to 1861. Active served on the U.S. West Coast. She conducted the Coast Survey's first reconnaissance from San Francisco, California, to San Diego, California, in 1852. Active sometimes stepped outside her normal Coast Survey duties to support U.S. military operations, serving as a troop transport and dispatch boat during various wars with Native Americans and during the San Juan Islands "Pig War" with the United Kingdom in 1859. She also rushed Union troops to Los Angeles, California, in 1861 during the early stages of the American Civil War.
SS George W. Elder (1874–1935) was a passenger/cargo ship. Originally a U.S. east coast steamer, she was built by John Roach & Sons in Chester, Pennsylvania. The George W. Elder became a west coast steamer in 1876 and served with the Oregon Steamship Company, Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company, San Francisco and Portland Steamship Company and the North Pacific Steamship Company. In 1907, the George W. Elder helped to rescue the survivors of her former running mate Columbia. The last owners of the George W. Elder were a Chilean firm which operated her under the name America. She operated the Chilean Coast under this guise until 1935, when she was finally scrapped. The location of her scrapping remains unknown.
SS Parthia (1870–1956) was an iron-hulled transatlantic ocean liner built for the Cunard Line by William Denny and Brothers in Dumbarton, Scotland. Her sister ships were the Abyssinia and Algeria. Unlike her two sisters, Parthia was smaller, built in a different shipyard and had a slightly different funnel arrangement. The Parthia was retired by Cunard in 1883 and sold to John Elder & Co., who subsequently transferred her to the Guion Line. After serving with the Guion Line and operating on trans-Pacific routes with the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, she was refitted and renamed Victoria.
The SS Admiral Sampson was a U.S.-flagged cargo and passenger steamship that served three owners between 1898 and 1914, when it was rammed by a Canadian passenger liner and sank in Puget Sound. Following its sinking off Point No Point, the Admiral Sampson has become a notable scuba diving destination for advanced recreational divers certified to use rebreathing equipment.
SS Roanoke (1882–1916) was a passenger and cargo ship built by John Roach & Sons in Chester, Pennsylvania. The Roanoke was built for the Old Dominion Steamship Company's service from New York to Norfolk Virginia. In 1898 the ship was sold to the North American Transportation and Trading Company to take miners, supplies and gold between Seattle and ports in Alaska. Later the Roanoke was sold to the Oregon-based North Pacific Steamship Company. In 1907, the Roanoke helped to rescue the survivors of her former running mate Columbia. On May 9, 1916, the Roanoke sank in heavy seas off the California coast near San Luis Obispo with the loss of 47 lives. There were only three survivors.
Ancon was an ocean-going wooden sidewheel steamship built in San Francisco in 1867. She carried both passengers and freight. In her early career she was a ferry in Panama and then ran between Panama and San Francisco. Later she began coastal runs between Sand Diego and San Francisco. Her last route was Port Townsend, Washington to Alaska. Today she is more notable for her disasters than her routine voyages. Ancon Rock in Icy Strait, Alaska is the site of her 1886 grounding. Her final wreck, in 1889 in Naha Bay, near Loring, Alaska was commemorated by Albert Bierstadt. His painting, "Wreck of the 'Ancon' in Loring Bay, Alaska" now hangs in the Museum of Fine Art in Boston.
Idaho was a wooden steamship built for Pacific Coast passenger and freight service. She was launched in 1866 and wrecked in 1889. She was one of the first ocean-going steamships to provide regular service to the northwest coast of North America.
Orizaba was one of the first ocean-going steamships in commercial service on the west coast of North America and one of the last side-wheelers in regular use. Her colorful career spanned the business intrigues of Cornelius Vanderbilt, civil unrest in Mexico and Nicaragua, and the Fraser River gold rush. The ship was particularly important to Southern California ports, where she called for roughly the last 20 years of her service.
Senator was a wooden, side-wheel steamship built in New York in 1848. She was one of the first steamships on the California coast and arguably one of the most commercially successful, arriving in San Francisco at the height of the California gold rush. She was the first ocean-going steamer to sail up the Sacramento River to reach the new gold fields. After more purpose-built river steamers became available, Senator began a 26-year long career sailing between San Francisco and Southern California ports. Age and improving technology finally made the ship unsuitable for passenger service by 1882. Her machinery was removed and she was converted into a coal hulk. She ended her days in New Zealand, where she was broken up sometime around 1912.
The City of Seattle was a passenger steamship built in 1890 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The City of Seattle operated out of Puget Sound from 1890 to 1921, during which it ran routes between the local ports as well as Alaska, notably transporting prospectors during the Klondike Gold Rush. In 1921, the City of Seattle returned to the East Coast where it ran routes in both New York and Florida. In 1937, the City of Seattle returned to Philadelphia to be scrapped.
Senator was a steel-hulled steamship launched in 1898. She served as a troopship during the Spanish-American War and was an important part of the Nome gold rush. She spent thirty years in the coastwise shipping trade between Alaska and San Diego, until she was scrapped in Osaka, Japan in 1935.
The wooden steamship Dora was a passenger and cargo vessel that served the coastal trade in the Territory of Alaska from 1880 to 1920. Built in San Francisco, California, it was active before, during and after the Klondike Gold Rush, and became known as "the bulldog of the North Pacific". After its sinking, a US Fish and Wildlife Service report referred to it as the "most historic vessel plying Alaskan waters."
SS City of Topeka was an iron-hulled passenger/cargo steamship built in 1884 by John Roach & Sons in Chester, Pennsylvania for the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad. She was purchased by the Pacific Coast Steamship Company in 1887 and used to transport cargo and passengers from Seattle, WA to Alaska, a route which was expanded to accommodate the Klondike Gold Rush. On September 11, 1906, she began to take on water while docked in Seattle and sank. She was raised, pumped, refloated, and after a brief interruption she resumed service. In 1916, the Pacific-Alaska Navigation Company merged with the Pacific Coast Steamship Company to form the Pacific Steamship Company, which sold the steamer in 1920 to the Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company. In 1921 she was purchased by the Los Angeles Steamship Company who extensively renovated her at the Hanlon Dry Dock and Shipbuilding facility and renamed her the SS Waimea. As Waimea she ran a weekly route between San Pedro and San Francisco, and saw her routes expanded to include Los Angeles. She was laid up in the Port of Los Angeles in 1930 and sold in 1932. She was broken down in 1933 and her iron plates were sold for scrap.
