W. T. Preston in her dry berth in Anacortes, Washington | |
History | |
---|---|
United States | |
Launched | 1929 |
Out of service | 1981 |
Refit | 1939 (re-hulled) |
Status | Museum ship |
General characteristics | |
Tonnage | 490 Gross Tons |
Length | 163 ft 6 in (49.83 m) |
Beam | 34 ft 8.5 in (10.579 m) |
Draft | 3 ft 8 in (1.12 m) |
Installed power |
|
Propulsion | Sternwheel |
Speed | 9 knots (17 km/h; 10 mph) (cruise) 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph) (max) |
W. T. Preston (snagboat) | |
Location | Anacortes waterfront, R Avenue, at foot of 7th Street, Anacortes, Washington |
Coordinates | 48°30′58″N122°36′33″W / 48.51611°N 122.60917°W |
Built | 1929 (re-hulled in 1939) |
Architect | Lake Union Drydock Co. |
Architectural style | Welded Barge Hull, Wooden Super Structure, Sternwheeler |
NRHP reference No. | 72001270 |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | 16 March 1972 [1] |
Designated NHL | 5 May 1989 [2] |
Designated SEATL | March 14, 1977 [3] |
W. T. Preston is a specialized sternwheeler that operated as a snagboat, removing log jams and natural debris that prevented river navigation on several Puget Sound-area rivers. She is now the centerpiece of the Snagboat Heritage Center in Anacortes, Washington. She was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1989. [2] Built in 1929, she is one of two surviving snagboats built and operated by the United States Army Corps of Engineers, and the only one on the American west coast. [4]
W. T. Preston operated from Olympia to Blaine, including the Skagit, Stillaguamish, and Snohomish rivers. Dead trees that reached Puget Sound often became half-submerged deadheads that could pierce the hulls of wooden vessels. The federal government began building snagboats to remove obstructions and facilitate river based commerce. W. T. Preston was named in honor of the only civilian engineer to work for the Army Corps of Engineers at the time of her construction in 1929. W. T. Preston used the main single expansion reciprocating steam engines, as well as many pumps and other hardware from her 1914 predecessor Swinomish. The Swinomish was built to replace the earlier Skagit, the first snagboat to work the rivers of the Puget Sound.
In many respects the W. T. Preston is similar to the Samson V, a former Canadian Department of Public Works snagboat now preserved as a museum in New Westminster, British Columbia. Sternwheeler machinery was simple and rugged and often outlasted the shallow-draughted hulls of the vessels. When the Samson V was built in 1937 it incorporated engines and a paddlewheel shaft from the Samson II of 1905, A-frame crane components from the Samson III of 1914 and the steam-winch from the Samson IV of 1924. Like the W. T. Preston, the Samson V maintained waterways for navigation and when retired in 1980, she was the last steam-powered paddlewheeler running in Canada.
The original W. T. Preston was a 163-foot, wooden-hulled vessel which pulled snags, performed light dredging, and otherwise worked the waters of Puget Sound until 1939; when, the Army Corps of Engineers built a new superstructure atop a welded steel hull and transferred the stern wheel, main engines, smokestack, foredeck equipment, and other items onto the second WT Preston. The mission of W. T. Preston changed throughout the years. As rivers were used less and less for transportation of goods, W. T. Preston began to dredge, fight fires, and perform other general work. Throughout her commission, she even retrieved a sunken military bomber, and several automobiles.
The Army Corps of Engineers operated W. T. Preston out of the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks, in Seattle, Washington. This boat served the Puget Sound for more than forty years before the Army Corps retired her in 1981. Her replacement, Puget, still operates today out of W. T. Preston's previous dock at the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks.
W. T. Preston is now permanently dry berthed on the waterfront near Cap Sante, in Anacortes, Washington. The vessel is a National Historic Landmark and remains officially a designated city historic landmark in Seattle (her former location). The ship now operates as a history museum, and is owned and operated by the City of Anacortes' City Museum. In 2005, the Snagboat Heritage Center was built just north of W. T. Preston. This interpretive center houses artifacts, models, maps and other historical text and information about the snagboats that maintained the area's navigable waterways. [5]
The Lake Washington Ship Canal is a canal that runs through the city of Seattle and connects the fresh water body of Lake Washington to the salt water inland sea of Puget Sound. The Hiram M. Chittenden Locks accommodate the approximately 20-foot (6.1 m) difference in water level between Lake Washington and the sound. The canal runs east–west and connects Union Bay, the Montlake Cut, Portage Bay, Lake Union, the Fremont Cut, Salmon Bay, and Shilshole Bay, which is part of the sound.
The Swinomishpeople are a Lushootseed-speaking people Indigenous to western Washington state.
The Hiram M. Chittenden Locks, or Ballard Locks, is a complex of locks at the west end of Salmon Bay in Seattle, Washington's Lake Washington Ship Canal, between the neighborhoods of Ballard to the north and Magnolia to the south.
Montgomery is a steam-powered sternwheel-propelled snagboat built in 1925 by the Charleston Dry Dock and Machine Company of Charleston, South Carolina, and operated by the United States Army Corps of Engineers. Montgomery cleared snags and obstructions from the Coosa, Alabama, Apalachicola, Chattahoochee, Flint, Black Warrior, and Tombigbee Rivers until her retirement from the Corps of Engineers on November 8, 1982. She was restored in 1984 and again in 2004. One of only two surviving Army Corps of Engineers snagboats, she was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1989. Montgomery now operates as a museum ship at the Tom Bevill Lock and Dam Visitor Center in Pickensville, Alabama.
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 sternwheeler Multnomah was built at East Portland, Oregon in 1885 and operated on the Willamette and Columbia Rivers until 1889 in the United States. She was later transferred to Puget Sound and became one of the better known steamboats operating there.
The steamboat S.G.Simpson operated in the early 1900s as part of the Puget Sound Mosquito Fleet. This vessel was later renamed E.G. English.
Olympian was a large side-wheel inland steamship that operated in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. Olympian operated from early 1884 to late 1891 on the Columbia River, Puget Sound, and the Inside Passage of British Columbia and Alaska.
A snagboat is a river boat, resembling a barge with superstructure for crew accommodations, and deck-mounted cranes and hoists for removing snags and other obstructions from rivers and other shallow waterways.
The Greyhound was an express passenger steamer that operated from the 1890s to about 1915 on Puget Sound in Washington, United States. This vessel, commonly known as the Hound, the Pup, or the Dog, was of unusual design, having small upper works, but an enormous sternwheel. Unlike many sternwheelers, she was not intended for a dual role as passenger and freighter, but was purpose-built to carry mostly passengers on express runs.
Joshua Green was an American sternwheeler captain, businessman, and banker. He rose from being a seaman to being the dominant figure of the Puget Sound Mosquito Fleet, then sold out his interests and became a banker. Living to the age of 105 and active in business almost to the end of his life, he became an invaluable source of information about the history of Seattle and the Puget Sound region. According to Nard Jones, Green was one of the city of Seattle's last fluent speakers of Chinook Jargon, the pidgin trade language of the Pacific Northwest.
The Swinomish Channel is an 11-mile (18 km) long salt-water channel in Washington state, United States, which connects Skagit Bay to the south and Padilla Bay to the north, separating Fidalgo Island from mainland Skagit County. The Swinomish Channel is the smallest of the three entrances to Puget Sound—the other two being Deception Pass and Admiralty Inlet.
T.W. Lake was a steamboat that ran on Puget Sound in the early 1900s. This vessel was lost with all hands on December 5, 1923 in one of the worst disasters of the Puget Sound Mosquito Fleet.
Chehalis was a sternwheel steamboat that ran on the Chehalis River, Puget Sound, and Lake Washington from 1867 to 1882. This vessel should not be confused with other steam vessels named Chehalis.
Leschi was a steam ferry that operated on Lake Washington from 1913 to 1950, and afterwards on Puget Sound until 1967. From 1969 to 1986 the vessel was a floating cannery in Alaska.
Sioux was a steamship which was operated on Puget Sound and the Strait of Juan de Fuca from 1912 to 1941. From 1924 to 1941, following reconstruction, the vessel operated as an auto ferry under the name Olympic. During the Second World War (1941-1945) this vessel was taken under the control of the U.S. Army and renamed the Franklin R. Leisenburg. The Liesenburg served as a ferry in the Panama Canal area under Army control, and then was sold to a firm which ran the vessel on the Surinam river in South America.
The Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, also known as the Swinomish Tribe, is a federally recognized tribe located on Puget Sound in Washington state. Swinomish is a legal successor to signatories of the 1855 Treaty of Point Elliott. Its Reservation is located 65 miles North of Seattle, Washington on Fidalgo Island.The tribe's population is primarily composed of Swinomish, Lower Skagit, Kikiallus, and Samish peoples and their descendants. Other populations on the reservation include the Suquamish and Upper Skagit.
Elwood was a sternwheel steamboat which was built to operate on the Willamette River, in Oregon, but which later operated on the Lewis River in Washington, the Stikine River in Canada, and on Puget Sound. The name of this vessel is sometimes seen spelled "Ellwood". Elwood is probably best known for an incident in 1893, when it was approaching the Madison Street Bridge over the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon. The bridge swung open to allow the steamer to pass. However, a streetcar coming in from the east end of the bridge failed to notice the bridge was open, and ran off into the river in the Madison Street Bridge disaster.
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.