Rainbow coming in to a landing. | |
History | |
---|---|
Name | Rainbow |
Owner | originally Charles E. Edwards, others later |
Port of registry | Marshfield, Oregon |
Launched | March 29, 1912 Coos Bay |
In service | May 28, 1912 |
Out of service | 1923 |
Identification | U.S. 209654 |
Fate | Scrapped |
General characteristics | |
Type | Inland passenger/freight |
Length | 64.4 ft (19.63 m) |
Beam | 18 ft (5.49 m) |
Depth | 3.8 ft (1.16 m) depth of hold |
Decks | two |
Installed power | Twin steam engines, horizontally mounted. |
Propulsion | Sternwheel |
Capacity | 100 passengers |
Crew | two (2) |
Rainbow was a sternwheel [1] steamboat that was operated in the Coos Bay region of Oregon from 1912 to 1923. Rainbow is sometimes referred to as a "launch", meaning a small steamboat. [2] This vessel's name is sometimes seen as Rain-Bow. [3]
Shipbuilder Frank Lowe built Rainbow at Marshfield (Coos Bay), Oregon in 1912. [3] [4] The steamer was launched on March 26, 1912, at 7:00 a.m. [5] No formal launching ceremony was held, due to uncertainty of when during the day the launch would occur. [5] Rainbow had been built for Captain Charles E. Edwards, of Allegany, Oregon. [6] [7]
At the time of the launch, Rainbow had no engines, and to install the engines and otherwise prepare the vessel for service, was estimated, at the time of launch, to take about three weeks. [5] Captain Edwards had been in charge of another vessel, the Alert, which he had taken out of service to allow him time to complete the Rainbow. [5] Rainbow however was not completed so quickly, it being reported on May 3, 1912 that the vessel was "rapidly nearing completion." [8]
Rainbow was 64.4 ft (19.63 m ) long, [4] with a beam of 18 ft (5.49 m ) and depth of hold of 3.8 ft (1.16 m ). [3] There were accommodations for 100 passengers [3] [9] The overall size of the steamer was 75 gross tons. [4] and 58 registered tons. [3] Total required crew was shown as only two. [3]
The steamer was reported to have been "built specially for the auto travel so that the part of the journey on water could be made as quickly as possible." [9] Freight was carried on the lower deck, which also included a men's cabin. [9] A women's cabin was on the upper deck, and, when the steamer was placed in service, Captain Edwards intended to establish a restaurant on board. [9]
On May 29, 1912, it was announced that Rainbow would be placed in service on June 1, 1912, on the run from Marshfield to Allegany. [9] [10] The steamer's initial planned use was to take passengers from Marshfield up the Coos River to Allegany, Oregon, where they could take an automobile route to Drain. [9] The automobile route had been established just the year before and was claimed to be the quickest way to reach the main rail line. [9]
Rainbow also transported livestock. [11] On the afternoon of September 3, 1912, a cow broke loose on board and fell into Coos Bay. [11] The crew rescued the animal unharmed with the aid of one of the steamer's boat davits. [11]
On March 17, 1913, while running on the route between Marshfield and Allegany on the north fork of the Coos River, 'near the head of navigation Rainbow hit a snag and sank. [12] According to one report, the water was shallow, so that the passengers were able to wait on the vessel's upper deck until they could be taken off by a gasoline launch. [12] The extent of the damage could not be immediately determined. [12]
According to another report, the accident occurred near Ox Head on the north Coos River, when Capt. Herman Edwards was at the vessel's wheel. [13] The boat hit the snag a little below Ox Head but did not begin taking on water until a little further on, when the steamer grounded on a bank in shallow water. [13] Four or five passengers were on board, and all were evacuated safely in small boats. [13] The damage turned out not to be too severe. [13]
In May 1913, plans were announced to establish, within a few weeks thereafter, an automobile service route from Allegany to Loon Lake. [14] Rainbow, under Captain Edwards, was to make the water connection on this route, from Allegany to Marshfield. [14]
On June 5, 1913, Rainbow carried a large crowd of passengers into Marshfield for the commencement ceremony at Marshfield High School. [15]
In June, 1913, relief service for Rainbow was performed by the launch Telephone. [16]
As of September 6, 1913, Rainbow was under the command of Capt. Herman Edwards and making tourist excursions on Sundays. [17] Rainbow was employed on an excursion to the life-saving station on Sunday, September 7, 1913, departing from a dock at the rear of the Pioneer Hardware store at 8 a.m., with round-trip fare of 50 cents. [17]
On the evening of September 10, 1913, George Overst, then aged 20, who was serving as a fireman on the Rainbow was seriously injured when his clothing caught around a rotating shaft in the vessel's machinery. [18] He could have been killed except that at just that moment the sternwheeler was coming in to the dock at Marshfield, and the engines were reversed, unwinding Overst's clothing and permitting him to free himself. [18] Overst had only been in Coos Bay a few months and was originally from Sherwood, Oregon. [18]
On September 26, 1913, Rainbow was advertised as making a connection to a new "auto stage" route that ran from Marshfield to Drain, Oregon via Allegany, Scottburg, and thereafter to Portland. [19] Rainbow boarded passengers every morning at 8:00 a.m. for this route, the fare for which was $11 as far as Drain. [19]
The traffic on the water-overland route from Marshfield to Drain via the water connection at Allegany did not prove to be great enough for Rainbow to sustain a profit. [20] In October, 1913, Captain Edwards made arrangements for the transfer of Rainbow to Herbert H. Rogers and E. George Smith, who intended to place the vessel on the south fork of the Coos River, the demand for steamer services was rising. [20]
It was considered likely that the Express, which had been on the south river run, would be transferred to the north fork, at least until the overhaul of Alert could be completed. [20] The transaction was expected to be effective on about November 1, 1913, when it was estimated that an overhaul of Alert could be completed. [21] [22]
On January 20, 1914, Capt. A.G. Smith was reported to be in command of Rainbow. [23]
On February 28, 1914, Rainbow was hauled out at the Kruse and Banks shipyard in North Bend, Oregon for repainting and maintenance. [24]
As of February 25, 1915, Rainbow was providing service to and from Marshfield on the south fork of the Coos River. [25] The vessel departed from the head of navigation on the south fork every morning at 7:00 a.m. en route to Marshfield, and then left Marshfield at 2:00 p.m. daily going back upriver. [25]
Rainbow was then run in concert with the launch Express, which left Marshfield daily at 8:00 a.m, ran up the south fork of the Coos River, where it departed from the head of navigation at 3:15 pm and returned to Marshfield. [25] The concern of Rogers & Smith were then the proprietors of both Rainbow and Express. [25]
On June 8, 1915, a steam pipe broke on Rainbow, and the vessel lost power. [26] As a result, when an anchor failed to hold, the steamer drifted ashore onto a flat. [26] Rainbow was brought off later without damage, and the anchor was recovered. [26]
George Smith, who by then had been captain of the Rainbow for four years, sold his interest in the Coos River Transportation Company to S.C. Rogers. [27] The place of George Smith as captain was taken by Thomas Smith. [27]
In March 1921, a case was heard before the Coos County Circuit Court in which L.A. Blanc, owner of the Coos Bay Creamery, sued the Coos River Transportation Company for $19,000, claiming that sparks from the steamer Rainbow landed on the roof of the creamery, resulting in a fire which destroyed the structure and a large amount of cheese which had been stored inside. [29] The creamery's owner, L.A. Blanc, had filed the legal action on June 1, 1920. [30] The allegations, filed against the company as well as S.C. Rogers and Herbert Rogers, were that in the previous year, in June 1919, the creamery, which had been located on the Coos River about 1.5 miles from Marshfield, was found to be on fire a short time after the Rainbow passed, causing total destruction of the creamery and loss of a large amount of cheese and butter. [30]
The creamery burned on June 16, 1919. [31] Some diary stocks were salvaged from the fire, and at least some of the loss was believed to be covered by insurance. [31]
Rainbow was scrapped in 1923. [4]
The history of steamboats on the Oregon Coast begins in the late 19th century. Before the development of modern road and rail networks, transportation on the coast of Oregon was largely water-borne. This article focuses on inland steamboats and similar craft operating in, from south to north on the coast: Rogue River, Coquille River, Coos Bay, Umpqua River, Siuslaw Bay, Yaquina Bay, Siletz River, and Tillamook Bay. The boats were all very small, nothing like the big sternwheelers and propeller boats that ran on the Columbia River or Puget Sound. There were many of them, however, and they came to be known as the "mosquito fleet."
The Coquille River starts in the Siskiyou National Forest and flows hundreds of miles through the Coquille Valley on its way to the Pacific Ocean. Bandon, Oregon, sits at the mouth of the Coquille River on the Pacific Ocean. Before the era of railroads and later, automobiles, the steamboats on the Coquille River were the major mode of transportation from Bandon to Coquille and Myrtle Point in southern Coos County, Oregon, United States.
The Coos Bay Mosquito Fleet comprised numerous small steamboats and motor vessels which operated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries on Coos Bay, a large and mostly shallow harbor on the southwest coast of the U.S. state of Oregon, to the north of the Coquille River valley. Coos Bay is the major harbor on the west coast of the United States between San Francisco and the mouth of the Columbia River.
Dora was a sternwheel steamboat that was operated on the Coquille River on the southern coast of Oregon from 1912 to 1923. This vessel should not be confused with a number of other craft of the same name operating at the same time in other parts of North America.
Myrtle was a steamboat built in 1909 for service on the Coquille River and its tributaries, in Oregon. The ability of this small vessel to reach remote locations on the river system was cited many years later as evidence in support of the important legal concept of navigability.
Coquille was a steamboat built in 1908 for service on the Coquille River and its tributaries. Coquille served as a passenger vessel from 1908 to 1916, when the boat was transferred to the lower Columbia River. Coquille was reconstructed into a log boom towing boat, and served in this capacity from 1916 to 1935 or later.
Liberty was a sternwheel steamboat that was operated on the Coquille River and then on Coos Bay from 1903 to 1918. Liberty was notable for having its ownership entangled in various legal claims in the early 1910s, including some involving a colorful North Bend, Oregon business promoter Lorenzo Dow "Major" Kinney (1855-1920).
Antelope was a steamboat that was operated on the Coquille River and on Coos Bay on the southern Oregon coast from 1886 to about 1908. Antelope was a versatile boat, which served in various roles, including passenger transport, barge towing, and as a fisheries tender.
Dispatch was a sternwheel steamboat that was operated on the Coquille River on the southern Oregon coast from 1903 to 1920. The name of this vessel is sometimes seen spelled Despatch. This sternwheeler should not be confused with an earlier and somewhat smaller sternwheeler, also named Dispatch, that was built at Bandon, Oregon, in 1890, for which the 1903 Dispatch was a replacement.
Favorite was a small steamboat that was operated on the Coquille River, Coos Bay and on the Siuslaw River, in the southern Oregon coast region from 1900 to 1918.
Wolverine was a launch powered by a gasoline engine that operated on the Coquille River on the southern coast of Oregon, United States, from 1908 to the 1920s. Later the boat operated on Coos Bay, and, in the mid-1930s, was transferred to Eureka, California. Wolverine is principally known for its early service as a high-speed passenger vessel.
Montesano was a steamboat that was operated from 1882 to about 1903 in the coastal regions of Oregon and southwest Washington, including Astoria, Willapa Bay, Grays Harbor, the Chehalis River, Yaquina Bay and Coos Bay. The Montesano of 1882, built in Astoria, should not be confused with another, larger sternwheeler, also named Montesano, built-in Cosmopolis, Washington, in 1889.
Little Annie was a sternwheel-driven steamboat that operated on the Coquille River on the Southern Oregon Coast from 1876 to 1890. This steamer should not be confused with a number of other vessels with the same name operating at about the same time in various parts of the United States.
Newport was an American steamboat built in 1908 at Yaquina City, Oregon. Now a ghost town, Yaquina City was then the terminus of the Corvallis & Eastern Railroad. For many years Newport transported excursionists in the summer months across a short water route between Yaquina City and the town of Newport, Oregon.
Gazelle was a gasoline powered launch that operated on the Willamette and Columbia river from 1905 to 1911. For short periods of time Gazelle was operated on the Oregon Coast, on Yaquina Bay and also as an off-shore fishing vessel, in the Coos Bay area.
La Center was a small stern-wheel steamboat that operated from 1912 to 1931, mostly on the Lewis and Lake rivers in southwest Washington, on a route to and from Portland, Oregon along the lower Columbia and lower Willamette rivers.
Jessie Harkins was a propeller-driven steamboat that operated on the Columbia River in the USA starting in 1903. It was rebuilt at least twice. Originally, Jessie Harkins was one of the larger gasoline-engined vessels to operate on the Columbia River. Jessie Harkins was built for the Harkins Transportation Company.
Ilwaco was a small riverine and coastal steamship built in 1890 which was operated as a passenger vessel for the Ilwaco Railway and Navigation Company, and later served in other roles, including tow and freight boat, cannery tender and fish packing vessel. Ilwaco was originally named Suomi.
Telegraph was a sternwheel-driven steamboat built in 1903 in Everett, Washington. Except for the summer of 1905, from 1903 to 1912, Telegraph served in Puget Sound, running mainly on the route from Seattle to Everett, and also from Seattle to Tacoma and Olympia, Washington.
The Callendar Navigation Company, sometimes seen as the Callendar Transportation Company, started in business in the early 1900s. Callendar was formed in the early 1900s, and was based in Astoria, Oregon. Callender was to become one of six large towing companies of the Columbia and Willamette rivers in the early decades of the 1900s, the others being Shaver Transportation, Smith Transportation, Hosford, Knappton Towing Co., and Willamette and Columbia River Towing Co. In 1922, Callendar Navigation merged with Knappton Towboat Co., which existed, with a name change in 1990, and which became part of Foss Marine in 1993.