Coquille waterfront, with Wolverine, Favorite and Wilhelmina at dock, about 1908 to 1914
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."[1]
The Rogue River meets the Pacific Ocean at Gold Beach, and flows all the way from the Cascade Mountains. R. D. Hume was a pioneering businessman at Wedderburn and Gold Beach, then known as Ellensburg. By 1881, he had established a fish cannery and built a steam schooner, Mary D. Hume, to support the cannery operation. Hume was still conducting steamboat operations on the Rogue River in 1901, and in that year, Capt. E.D. Burns built the sternwheel steamboat Rogue River in Portland, and brought her down the coast to compete against Hume's operation. Mary D. Hume passed through several owners and was still in operation as late as 1939, when she was the oldest commercial vessel in service in the Pacific Northwest.
In November 1902, Burns succeeded in reaching deep inland on the Rogue to Agness, however, in returning to Gold Beach, on November 16, 1902 the boat struck a rock at Boiler Rapids, where, at least in 1966, her boiler was reported to be still visible. This was the only known effort to take a conventional vessel so far up the Rogue River.
In 1903 the gasoline-powered Success was built at Gold Beach for the Rogue River service. R.D. Hume continued his interest in shipping out of the Rogue River, commissioning the construction in 1908 of two small gasoline-powered schooners, Enterprise (22 tons) and Osprey (43 tons) from Ellingson in Coquille. Hume died by 1912, as his estate is reported to have sold Enterprise and Osprey to someone from Portland.[1]
The Coquille River runs inland from Bandon. Before the era of railroads and later automobiles, the Coquille River was the major transportation route from Bandon to Coquille and Myrtle Point in southern Coos County.
Coos Bay is a large and mostly shallow harbor on Oregon's southwest coast, to the north of the Coquille River valley. It is the major harbor on the west coast of the United States between San Francisco and the mouth of the Columbia River.
Two steamboat captains from the Columbia River began steamboat operations on Coos Bay in 1873. Inland riverboats were used to navigate the bay and the several rivers flow that flow into it. A mule-hauled portage was built between a shallow southern arm of Coos Bay and the Beaver Slough, a shallow north-extending branch of the Coquille River, in 1869; it was replaced in 1874 with a steam portage railroad. This connection established a convenient link between the steamboat operations of Coos Bay and those on the Coquille.
Numerous steamboats were built over the ensuing decades. In 1912, a number of steamboats were wrecked, by collision, fire and grounding on the sandbar at the mouth of the bay.
Umpqua River
The Umpqua River runs from Reedsport up through Douglas County. Gardiner is a town near the mouth of the Umpqua where several river steamers were built. One of the Umpqua River's several branches eventually reaches Roseburg, although the head of navigation was Scottsburg. Captain Godfrey Seymour began steamboat operations on the Umpqua River with Raftsman, later adding Washington, Swan, and Enterprise.
Swan was unique as the only steamboat to ever ascend as far as Roseburg on the Umpqua. This was in 1870, when the merchants of Gardiner were anxious to demonstrate the navigability of this river. Roseburg is 85 miles above the mouth of the river, and it took Swan 11 days to get there. This was sufficient to persuade Congress to allocate $70,000 for channel clearance of the Umpqua, even though no other steamboat ever again ran up to Roseburg.[2]
In 1906, the propeller steamer Juno (32 tons) was built at Marshfield and placed on the Umpqua River service by the Umpqua River Steam Navigation Company.[1]
Siuslaw Bay is yet another large shallow bay on the Oregon coast, with its entrance about 24 miles north of the mouth of the Umpqua River. The Siuslaw River widens into the bay, which meets the ocean near the town of Florence. In 1890 or thereabouts, the Moonlight was placed in service on Siuslaw Bay and its various back channels.[2]
Steamer Newport, with barge lashed on, and launch Beaver departing Newport for Yaquina, circa 1910
Yaquina Bay, like Coos Bay, is another shallow coastal bay on the Oregon Coast. The principal town on Yaquina Bay is Newport. Once the Oregon Pacific Railroad reached Toledo, on the east end of Yaquina Bay, tourists started coming to the bay from the Willamette Valley. The roads were bad or nonexistent at the time, so the only way to the seaside hotels at Newport was to cross the Yaquina Bay by steamer. Propeller steamboats did most of this service, however in 1872, the sidewheeler Oneatta was launched at Pioneer, ran on the bay for a while and then was transferred to the Columbia River, and in 1882, to Humboldt Bay.[3] Later, Rebecca C. and Cleveland also ran on Yaquina Bay.[2]
Siletz River
The Siletz River runs into the Pacific about 30 miles north of Yaquina Bay, near the town of Taft now part of Lincoln City. The first salmon cannery was established on the Siletz River in 1896 by Daniel Kern, a Portlander. This was Kerns Bros. Packing Co., on the north side of the river. Later that same year the post office of Kernville was established in the same location, where a small town later developed. Kern brought in the small steamer Tonquin, 64' long, built at Portland, to act as a cannery tender and supply vessel. Kern later sold his cannery to Elmore Packing, of Astoria, and went into the marine construction business.
Much later, the Siletz Navigation Company operated on the Siletz, at least in the early 1920s. In 1923, Siletz (93 tons), described as a "strongly built diesel freighter" was launched at Kernville, Oregon, to serve local routes from the Siletz river entrance. This boat was probably more of an ocean-going vessel than the typical mosquito fleet craft, as she was sold to a Hawaii firm and voyaged there herself in 19 days without mishap.[1]
Tillamook Bay
Bay Ocean, probably off the coast of Oregon
Tillamook Bay was a large very shallow bay on the northern part of the Oregon Coast. In 1911, the yacht Bay Ocean was built in Portland to provide service from Portland to Tillamook Bay for a beach resort. Bay Ocean was designed by R.A. Ballin for the T.B. Potter real estate company, which was developing the (eventually ill-fated) resort at Bay Ocean Spit on Tillamook Bay. Bay Ocean was the largest motor passenger vessel built to that date on the Pacific Coast. She was long (150') and narrow (18' beam), with a clipper bow and bowsprit. She had three gasoline engines connected to a single shaft. She could accommodate 50 passengers on the Portland-Tillamook route but had difficulty on the run and only served in the summer. She was called up by the navy to function as a patrol boat in the First World War.[1] After the war, Bay Ocean was sold to Crowley Launch and Tug Co., of San Francisco.[2]
Mosquito fleet operations in the Coos Bay area and Coquille River valley continued up into the 1930s, due to the lack of good roads and other more modern transportation in these areas. As possibly the extreme example, the small (14 tons) gasoline-propeller Welcome, built 1919, was on the run up the Coos River from Marshfield to Allegany until 1948.[1]
Steamboat graveyards
When steamboat service ended on the Coquille, at least three steamers, Myrtle, Telegraph, and Dora were all beached on the river near Bandon.[4]
The Mary D. Hume, built in 1881, is still largely intact, lying on the shore at Gold Beach, Oregon. The wreck itself is on the National Register of Historic Places.
The steam ferry Roosevelt, which used to run on Coos Bay, was photographed abandoned near Marshfield in 1941.
A large number of boats of all types were built on these waters, powered by various means, including steam, gasoline, and diesel engines. This index will attempt to track only vessels over 30 tons built before 1920, with exceptions where a vessel appears to be of more interest, due to an available on-line image or otherwise.
sold in the late 1880s to Alaska whaling interests, later a cannery tender in Alaskan waters, reengined several times, and in service as late as 1939. Currently lying on shore at Gold Beach
Badly damaged by collision with Telegraph 1914, and forced to beach near Bandon. Repaired and ran on Coquille River until sale to Shaver Transportation Co. in 1928.[8]
Registry # 206414 sank November 2, 1924 at 6:30 a.m. on the Coquille River at Bandon, Oregon resulting in the drowning death of Clarence Henry Hurley (06/22/1880 - 11/02/1924), president of the C. & C. Cedar Company of Bandon, Oregon. Salvaged and remained in service until abandoned June 30, 1929.
Foundered off coast June 5, 1923, just south of Neahkanie Mountain, while en route from Coos Bay to Kelso. Crew survived, hull washed ashore and buried by sand.[1][4]
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Newell, Gordon R., ed., H.W. McCurdy Marine History of the Pacific Northwest, at 2, 61, 70, 83, 92, 119, 147-49, 162, 190, 202, 207, 244, 268, 311, 340, 343-44, 363, and 554, Superior Publishing, Seattle, WA 1966
1 2 3 4 Timmen, Fritz, Blow for the Landing, at 189, 200-207, Caxton Printers, Caldwell, ID 1972 ISBN0-87004-221-1
↑ Newell, Gordon, and Williamson, Joe, Pacific Steamboats, at 47, Superior Publishing, Seattle WA 1958, state that Oneatta was transferred to Humboldt Bay and don't mention service on the Columbia River
1 2 3 Marshall, Don, Oregon Shipwrecks, at 45,97 and 220, Binford & Mort, Portland, OR 1984 ISBN0-8323-0430-1
↑ Mills, Randall V., Sternwheelers up Columbia, pages 189-203, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE (1947; 2nd Printing 1977) ISBN0-8032-5874-7
↑ Timmen, at 207. He also gives her date of construction as 1876 and her place built as Myrtle Point
↑ The Victor West gallery source gives 1888 as date of construction.
The Umpqua people are an umbrella group of several distinct tribal entities of Native Americans of the Umpqua Basin in present-day south central Oregon in the United States. The area south of Roseburg is now known as the Umpqua Valley.
The Siletz were the southernmost of several divisions of the Tillamook people speaking a distinct dialect; the other dialect-divisions were: Salmon River on the Salmon River, Nestucca on Little Nestucca River, Nestucca River and Nestucca Bay, Tillamook Bay on the Tillamook Bay and the mouths of the Kilchis, Wilson, Trask and Tillamook rivers, and Nehalem on Nehalem River. The name "Siletz" comes from the name of the Siletz River on which they live. The origin of the name is unknown
The Alsea are a Native American tribe of Western Oregon. They are, confederated with other Tribes on the Siletz Reservation, Oregon, and are members of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz.
U.S. Route 101 (US 101), is a major north–south U.S. Highway in Oregon that runs through the state along the western Oregon coastline near the Pacific Ocean. It runs from the California border, south of Brookings, to the Washington state line on the Columbia River, between Astoria, Oregon, and Megler, Washington.
The Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians in the United States is a federally recognized confederation of more than 27 Native American tribes and bands who once inhabited an extensive homeland of more than 20 million acres from northern California to southwest Washington and between the summit of the Cascades and the Pacific Ocean. After the Rogue River Wars, these tribes were removed to the Coast Indian Reservation, now known as the Siletz Reservation. The tribes spoke at least 11 distinct languages, including Tillamook, Shasta, Lower Chinook, Kalapuya, Takelma, Alsea-Yaquina, Siuslaw/Lower Umpqua, Coos, the Plateau Penutian languages Molala and Klickitat, and several related Oregon Athabaskan languages.
The Oregon Coast Range, often called simply the Coast Range and sometimes the Pacific Coast Range, is a mountain range, in the Pacific Coast Ranges physiographic region, in the U.S. state of Oregon along the Pacific Ocean. This north-south running range extends over 200 miles (320 km) from the Columbia River in the north on the border of Oregon and Washington, south to the middle fork of the Coquille River. It is 30 to 60 miles wide and averages around 1,500 feet (460 m) in elevation above sea level. The coast range has three main sections, a Northern, Central, and Southern.
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.
Washington was an early steamboat operated in the states of California and Oregon. Washington was built in California and was initially operated on the Sacramento River. In 1851, the steamer was purchased and brought on a ship to the Oregon Territory, where it was operated on the Willamette River until the summer of 1853. Washington was sold again, and then transferred to the Oregon coast, where it operated on the Umpqua River, on the Coquille River and on Coos Bay. Washington was able to operate for shorter distances over the open ocean along the Oregon coast. The steamer was wrecked by a boiler explosion in December 1857, near Scottsburg, O.T., on the Umpqua river.
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.
Echo was a sternwheel steamboat that was operated on the Coquille River on the Southern Oregon Coast from 1901 to 1910.
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.
Eva was a sternwheel steamboat that was operated on the Umpqua River on the Oregon coast in the early part of the 1900s. Eva was notable for long service on a short route of about 20 miles. Eva was also notable for having been used by one of its owners to illegally transport dynamite on a passenger-carrying vessel, by the ruse of labeling the dynamite boxes as "bacon."
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.
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.
Sue H. Elmore was a steamboat built for service on the coast of Oregon and southwest Washington. From 1900 to 1917, the vessel's principal route ran from Portland, Oregon down the Columbia River to Astoria, and then west across the Columbia Bar, then south along the Oregon coast to Tillamook Bay. Once at Tillamook Bay, Sue H. Elmore was one of the few vessels that could reach Tillamook City at the extreme southern edge of the mostly very shallow bay. After this Sue H. Elmore was sold, being operated briefly in Puget Sound under the name Bergen, and then for many years, out of San Diego, California as a tugboat under the name Cuyamaca. During World War II Cuyamaca was acquired by the U.S. Army which operated the vessel as ST-361. Afterwards the army sold ST-361 and the vessel returned to civilian ownership, again under the name Cuyamaca. In 1948 Cuyamaca sank in a harbor in Venezuela, but was raised and by the early 1950s, was owned by one A. W. Smith, of Pensacola, Florida. This vessel's former landing place in Tillamook, Oregon is now a municipal park named after the ship.
W.H. Harrison was a steam schooner that operated from 1890 to 1905 on the coast of Oregon, the lower Columbia River, and southwest Washington state. At that time the salmon cannery industry was one of the major businesses of the coast. W.H. Harrison, while also carrying passengers and transporting general freight and lumber, was one of a number of steamers supplying materials to canneries along the coast, and transporting cases of canned salmon from the canneries.
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.
