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.
Tenino was built in 1860 by C.L. Barnes at the mouth of the Deschutes River on the upper Columbia River for the Oregon Steam Navigation Company ("OSN"), which by the time Tenino was built was becoming the most powerful transportation company in the American part of the Oregon Country. John Gates, the OSN principal engineer, supervised construction of Tenino and became her first engineer. The engines were new from the OSN shops.[2]
Operations
Advertisement for the Tenino and other steamers of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, published in the Walla Walla Statesman, April 5, 1862.
OSN built Tenino to run with Colonel Wright which was the first steamer on the Columbia above Celilo. Tenino was a bigger and more powerful vessel than Colonel Wright the first steamboat on this stretch of the river.[3] Both boats were owned by the powerful monopoly of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company.
Demand for passage and freight shipments up the Columbia was very great in the early 1860s. Although only a moderate sized vessel, it was not necessary to haul large amounts of cargo for a vessel to be profitable at that time on the river.[2]Tenino proved to be one of the most profitable boats yet to appear on the river.[3] As Professor Mills described it:
[T]he Tenino made money as fast as the purser could collect and stuff it into a carpetbag. On a single upriver run in May, 1862, when the gold rush was at its roaring best, the Tenino gathered in $18,000 for fares, meals, berths and incidentals -- the bar.[4]
Tenino's first captain was Leonard Wright, who had taken Colonel Wright far up the Snake River. Later captains were Charles Felton, E.W. Baughman, J.H.D. Gray, Eugene F. Coe (1842-1893) and Thomas and John Stump. The company ran Tenino hard and by 1867[2] or 1869[1] the vessel had to be rebuilt.
Salvaged or reconstructed
In 1876, Tenino struck a rock while moving down river. Her hull was too old to be worth salvaging, so OSN removed the engines and installed them in a new sternwheeler, called the New Tenino.[2] Another source states that Tenino was rebuilt a second time in 1876, and it was this reconstructed vessel that was known as the New Tenino.[1] A reconstruction could be almost the same as building a new vessel, so this may be a matter of characterization of the work. For example, when Rossland on the Arrow Lakes was rebuilt, in the off-season of 1909-10, the upper works were jacked up, the old hull removed, and a new hull slid underneath the old deckhouse structure, which was then lowered down onto the new hull.[5]
J. E. Akins, Master, Lewiston, Idaho, wrote: “In the year 1880, she was dismantled and the hull towed to Lewiston, where it was used for a wharf boat, until 1884, when an ice gorge in the Snake River tore her from her moorings and she was wrecked on an island just below the City of Lewiston.”[6]
Notes
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Affleck, Edward L., A Century of Paddlewheelers in the Pacific Northwest, the Yukon, and Alaska, at 21 and 26, Alexander Nicolls Press, Vancouver, BC 2000
1 2 3 4 Wright, E.W., ed., Lewis and Dryden Marine History of the Pacific Northwest, at 100-101, Lewis & Dryden Publishing Co., Portland, OR 1895
1 2 Mills, Randall V., Sternwheelers up Columbia -- A Century of Steamboating in the Oregon Country, at 40, 43, 81, and 83, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE (1977 reprint of 1947 ed.) ISBN0-8032-5874-7
↑ Turner, Robert D., Sternwheelers and Steam Tugs -- An Illustrated History of the Canadian Pacific Railway's British Columbia Lake and River Service, Sono Nis Press, Victoria BC 1984 ISBN0-919203-15-9
↑ Martin, C Lee (January 3, 1936). "Origin of 'Tenino' is Unsolved". Thurston County Independent.
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.
The Shaver Transportation Company is an inland water freight transportation company based in Portland, Oregon, United States. The company was founded in 1880 and played a major role in the development of freight transport in the Portland area and along the Columbia.
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.
Steamboats on the Columbia River system were wrecked for many reasons, including striking rocks or logs ("snags"), fire, boiler explosion, or puncture or crushing by ice. Sometimes boats could be salvaged, and sometimes not.
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. She was named after Colonel 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.
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 Shoshone was the first steamboat built on the Snake River, Idaho, above Hells Canyon and the first of only two steamboats to be brought down through Hells Canyon to the lower Snake River. This was considered one of the most astounding feats of steamboat navigation ever accomplished.
The Carrie Ladd was an important early steamboat on the lower Columbia and lower Willamette rivers. The vessel established the basic design of the Columbia River steamboat, which was later used throughout the Pacific Northwest, British Columbia, Alaska, and the Yukon.
Rival was a sternwheel steamboat that ran on the Willamette River between Oregon City and Portland, Oregon from 1860 to 1868. Rival was intended to be a boat which would promise low fares in an effort to beat a steamboat monopoly which was then in formation.
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.
Wenat was a stern-wheel steamboat that, under the name Swan, was built and operated, briefly, on the Tualatin River, in the state of Oregon. In 1858, Swan was sold, moved to the lower Willamette River, renamed Cowlitz, and placed on a route between Portland, Oregon the Cowlitz River.
Minnehaha was a sternwheel-driven steamboat which was built in 1866 on Oswego Lake, then known as Sucker Lake, in Oregon, United States. Minnehaha was later transferred to the Willamette and Columbia rivers where it operated for the first part of the 1870s.
Dayton was a steamboat which operated on the Willamette and Columbia rivers from 1868 to 1881. Dayton operated on the Willamette from 1868 to 1876, mostly upriver from Willamette Falls, including a route on the Yamhill River to Dayton, Oregon, after which the steamer was named. From 1876 to 1881, Dayton was employed on a run from Portland to Monticello, W.T., which was located on the site of what is now Longview, Washington.
Albany was a stern-wheel driven steamboat that operated on the Willamette River from 1868 to 1875. This vessel should not be confused with the later sternwheeler Albany, which ran, also on the Willamette River, from 1896 to 1906, when it was rebuilt and renamed Georgie Burton.
Occident was a steamer that operated on the Willamette River and occasionally its tributary, the Santiam River from 1875 to about 1890. Occident was designed primarily for freight work, and did not have passenger accommodations. This Occident should not be confused with the smaller steam launch Occident, apparently propeller-driven, which operated out of Astoria, Oregon in the 1890s.
No Wonder was a stern-wheel driven steamboat that operated on the Willamette, Columbia and Cowlitz rivers from 1889 to 1930. No Wonder was originally built in 1877 as Wonder, which was dismantled in 1888, with components being shifted over to a new hull, which when launched in late 1889 was called No Wonder.
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.
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