Shipwrecks of the inland Columbia River

Columbia River

The Columbia River is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Canada, flows northwest and then south into the U.S. state of Washington, then turns west to form most of the border between Washington and the state...

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.

Collision

Collision could occur between steamboats, and probably did on many occasions near landings without serious loss. One instance of collision between boats causing the loss of one was in 1905, when Boneta was struck by Idaho near St. Joe, Idaho, and sank as result. Gwendoline and Ruth were both sunk in narrow Jennings Canyon in 1897 when Ruth spun out of control after a log became jammed in her sternwheel, she struck the trailing boat Gwendoline and both went down. Oregona hit an anchored barge on the Willamette on December 26, 1913 and sank.

Collision between steamboats and seagoing vessels did occur in the lower Columbia river. Such collisions would have been much more serious because of the generally much larger size and tough construction of the ocean-going vessel. Thus, on December 30, 1907, Annie Comings was rammed by the barque

Barque

A barque, barc, or bark is a type of sailing vessel with three or more masts.- History of the term :The word barque appears to have come from the Greek word baris, a term for an Egyptian boat. This entered Latin as barca, which gave rise to the Italian barca, Spanish barco, and the French barge and...

Europe in the Willamette River near St. Johns, and sank in three minutes, fortunately with no loss of life. Clatsop Chief was sunk in a similar collision with the steamship Oregon on February 28, 1881, that time four people drowned. F.B. Jones was rammed and sunk in 1907 on the lower Columbia by the tanker Asuncion.

Snags, Rocks, Pilings and Piers

Collision with fixed or floating objects also happened, often with bad results. The crack boat Daisy Ainsworth hit a rock and sank just above the Upper Cascades on November 22, 1876. (In bad weather, her captain had made a minor navigation mistake). Harvest Queen, despite her status a larger boat (846 tons, 200' long), was not immune. She struck a fishtrap piling on November 19, 1896, sank, and was later raised. Oregon hit a snag on the Willamette in 1854, was bumped loose by Gazelle
Gazelle (sidewheeler 1854)
Gazelle was an early sidewheeler on the Willamette River in what is now the U.S. state of Oregon. She did not operate long, suffering a catastrophic boiler explosion less than a month after her trial voyage.-Design and construction:...

(herself later to explode at Canemah

Canemah, Oregon

Canemah was an early settlement in the U.S. state of Oregon located near Willamette Falls on the Willamette River. It is now a district within Oregon City.-Location:...

not much later), then drifted downstream, hit a rock and sunk for good.

Shoshone, which, with Norma, was one of the only two steamboats brought down the rapids of Hells Canyon

Hells Canyon

Hells Canyon is a wide canyon located along the border of eastern Oregon and western Idaho in the United States. It is North America's deepest river gorge at and part of the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area....

, struck a rock and sank at Salem

Salem, Oregon

Salem is the capital of the U.S. state of Oregon, and the county seat of Marion County. It is located in the center of the Willamette Valley alongside the Willamette River, which runs north through the city. The river forms the boundary between Marion and Polk counties, and the city neighborhood...

in 1874. Spokane hit a snag on the Coeur d'Alene River on April 5, 1887, sank and drowned a number of prominent people. She was salvaged but renamed Irene. Orient hit a rock in the Cowlitz

Cowlitz River

The Cowlitz River is a river in the state of Washington in the United States, a tributary of the Columbia River. Its tributaries drain a large region including the slopes of Mount Rainier, Mount Adams, and Mount St. Helens....

in 1894, and then somehow burned during the attempted salvage.

The sternwheeler Dalles City sank on February 8, 1906, after striking a rock in the upper Columbia. Her crew said the steering gear had malfunctioned. Madeline hit a snag on the Cowlitz and sank on March 23, 1925. Diamond O. struck a bridge at Vancouver

Vancouver, Washington

Vancouver is a city on the north bank of the Columbia River in the U.S. state of Washington. Incorporated in 1857, it is the fourth largest city in the state with a 2010 census population of 161,791 as of April 1, 2010...

, rolled over and sank on April 25, 1934.

Boiler Explosion

These did not happen often, but they were very dangerous when they did, and generally resulted in severe casualties among the crew and passengers and the complete loss of the boat. Steamboat boiler explosions had been a common problem on the Mississippi River system well before the steamboats began serious operations in the Pacific Northwest

Pacific Northwest

The Pacific Northwest is a region in northwestern North America, bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains on the east. Definitions of the region vary and there is no commonly agreed upon boundary, even among Pacific Northwesterners. A common concept of the...

in the 1850s. By 1852, the problem had gotten so bad that Congress enacted a law setting out detailed standards for inspection of steamboats and licensing of officers. Considerable work was done in the 1840s and 1850s to understand what caused boiler explosions, and these came down to many causes, including general wear and tear, inadequate or poorly designed equipment, overworked boilers that were too small for the engines, general lack of engineering skill among boiler operators, and excessive demands for performance from the vessel's captain or management. People noticed early on that most of boiler explosions occurred just as steamboats were leaving (or sometimes arriving at) a landing. This was true in two-thirds of the boiler explosions up to 1852. Steam pressure was supposed to be reduced during a landing, but this would make it more difficult to get off to a fast start, so too often pressure was kept up even though the engines weren't running to relieve the pressure by use of the steam generated by the boiler.. Under these circumstances, boiler explosions were much more likely.
Early steamboat experience in the Oregon Country

Oregon Country

The Oregon Country was a predominantly American term referring to a disputed ownership region of the Pacific Northwest of North America. The region was occupied by British and French Canadian fur traders from before 1810, and American settlers from the mid-1830s, with its coastal areas north from...

was unfortunately consistent with the Mississippi river boiler explosion pattern. Canemah was the first steamboat in Oregon to suffer a boiler explosion, on August 8, 1853, at or shortly below Champoeg

Champoeg, Oregon

Champoeg is a former town in the U.S. state of Oregon. Now a ghost town, it was an important settlement in the Willamette Valley in the early 1840s. It is positioned halfway between Oregon City and Salem and the site of the first provisional government of the Oregon Country...

landing on the Willamette River

Willamette River

The Willamette River is a major tributary of the Columbia River, accounting for 12 to 15 percent of the Columbia's flow. The Willamette's main stem is long, lying entirely in northwestern Oregon in the United States...

. One passenger was killed, but the boat survived. Shoalwaters boiler exploded in May, 1853, at Rock Island, also on the Willamette River
Willamette River
The Willamette River is a major tributary of the Columbia River, accounting for 12 to 15 percent of the Columbia's flow. The Willamette's main stem is long, lying entirely in northwestern Oregon in the United States...

. No one was killed however and enough remained of the boat to allow it to be rebuilt as Fenix. Details of these early explosions are lacking, but it is significant that at least one of them, Canemah, occurred at a landing.

Gazelle exploded at Canemah on April 8, 1854 while moored next to Wallamet and many people were killed. (see Lone Fir Cemetery

Lone Fir Cemetery

Lone Fir Cemetery in the southeast section of Portland, Oregon, United States is a cemetery owned and maintained by Metro, a regional government entity. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the first burial was in 1846 with the cemetery established in 1855...

.) This was right by Oregon City

Oregon City, Oregon

Oregon City was the first city in the United States west of the Rocky Mountains to be incorporated. It is the county seat of Clackamas County, Oregon...

, the most populous town in the Oregon Territory

Oregon Territory

The Territory of Oregon was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from August 14, 1848, until February 14, 1859, when the southwestern portion of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Oregon. Originally claimed by several countries , the region was...

at the time. The details as described by Mills fit the pattern of landing explosions closely.
A coroner's jury fixed the blame on the negligence of the engineer, which was probably easy since hadn't remained around to defend himself. This may not have been entirely fair, as failure to maintain good steam could have readily lead to the loss of the boat by being swept over the nearby Willamette Falls

Willamette Falls

The Willamette Falls is a natural waterfall on the Willamette River between Oregon City and West Linn, Oregon, in the United States. It is the largest waterfall in the Pacific Northwest and the eighteenth largest in the world by water volume. Horseshoe in shape, it is wide and high with a flow...

, which was precisely the circumstance that happened a few years later, when a boat for lack of power was caught by the current and washed over the falls, killing the two men who hadn't been able to jump free and catch a rescuer's line.

Three years later, the little (60 gross tons)Elk exploded without loss of life not far away on the Willamette

Willamette River

near where the Yamhill

Yamhill River

The Yamhill River is an tributary of the Willamette River, in the U.S. state of Oregon. Formed by the confluence of the South Yamhill River and the North Yamhill River about east of McMinnville, it drains part of the Northern Oregon Coast Range...

flows into it. As with Canemah, this was another where the steamer was under way at the time of the explosion, and yet surprisingly no loss of life occurred, although Elks captain was blown out of the pilot house and into a cottonwood tree on the riverbank.

No other boiler explosions occurred until Senator blew up at the dock at Alder Street in Portland
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

on May 6, 1875. The explosion severed the mooring lines and the wreck drifted downriver and washed up at Albina. Although by 1875 the steamboat act of 1852 had been in effect for over 20 years, the Senators explosion just after taking on passengers fit well with the old pattern of loading on extra steam to make a quick start.
The Senator explosion, as with the Gazelle 21 years before, was blamed on her engineer's having allowed low water in her boilers, so that when her engines were shut off, steam pressure built up too quickly, causing boiler failure. Low water in the boiler was a situation where flames and hot gases from the firebox were allowed to have direct contact with the metal boiler tubes and other critical components when there should have been a barrier of water preventing this. The result would be either weakening of the metal over time or too quick a build up in steam pressure, either one causing failure of the boiler jacket, that is, an explosion.. Hunter, in his thorough survey on the subject, cautions however that low boiler water, while often a cause of an explosion, was not always a good enough explanation, and that it had been shown by experiments as early as 1836 that a well-filled boiler could still explode, and that overheating caused by low water in the boiler frequently but not always led to an explosion.

Low boiler water did however have the advantage of shifting the blame off from the captain for demanding immediate speed following the landing, or the owners, for pushing the schedule so hard that the engineer felt compelled to keep steam up while the engines were off line. Hunter makes the point that in 1838, when the spectacular explosion of the Moselle on the Ohio River

Ohio River

The Ohio River is the largest tributary, by volume, of the Mississippi River. At the confluence, the Ohio is even bigger than the Mississippi and, thus, is hydrologically the main stream of the whole river system, including the Allegheny River further upstream...

near Cincinnati, caused a congressional investigation, that there was no existing body of knowledge or professional tradition for steamboat engineers. By the time of the Senator explosion in 1875 and certainly by that of Annie Faxon in 1893, that would no longer have been true, and professional standards and skills would have been well established.

Even so, boiler explosions continued to occur. On January 18, 1912 Sarah Dixon

Sarah Dixon (sternwheeler)

Sarah Dixon was a wooden sternwheel-driven steamboat operated by the Shaver Transportation Company on the Columbia and lower Willamette rivers from 1892 to 1926. Originally Sarah Dixon was built as a mixed use passenger and freight vessel, and was considered a prestige vessel for the time. Later,...

exploded at Kalama, killing her captain, first mate, and fireman. In 1943, Cascades exploded and burned in Portland.

Fire

Fire was a great hazard. There were many instances of this. Mills states that fires were as rare as explosions but this does not seem to the be the case. Marshall collected at least thirteen separate instances of boats being destroyed by fire, and in some of these more than one boat was burned.

Causes of Fire

Hunter well summarized the causes of fire in wooden steamboats:
Hunter then points out that on the Mississippi-Ohio-Missouri boats he studied, the cargo itself was often highly flammable, consisting perhaps of loosely bound cotton bales, hale, sometimes in bales, sometimes not, straw, kegs of spirits and even gunpowder. Some of these conditions no doubt prevailed on many or most of the wooden steamboats in the Northwest. Until the coming of electrical generators, all the interiors of all the boats were lit by lanterns or open candle flames. Right in the middle of this potential bonfire had been planted one of the most powerful furnaces that the technology of the day could devise, which showered sparks and flaming materials out of the stacks, and which fed on an air supply funnelled by the boat's speed and the draft generated by the high stacks.

Rapidity of destruction

Fire could easily and rapidly spread throughout the whole boat in these circumstances. The draft created by the motion of the boat would quickly spread the fire along its whole length. If the fire could not be immediately quenched, the only option was to turn in to the shore as quickly as possible and try to evacuate the passengers. Some examples of how rapidly the fire could destroy a vessel include the Telephone, near Astoria, and, far up river, Columbia, just north of the Canadian border.

Fire on Telephone

The crack Telephone, one of the fastest on the lower Columbia, in November 1887, burned near Astoria

Astoria, Oregon

Astoria is the county seat of Clatsop County, Oregon, United States. Situated near the mouth of the Columbia River, the city was named after the American investor John Jacob Astor. His American Fur Company founded Fort Astoria at the site in 1811...

, with 140 passengers and 32 crew on board, under the command of Captain U.B. Scott. Professor Mills describes the scene:
Captain Scott remained in the pilot house until its steps had burned, then dove out the window just before the boat's upper works collapsed. By then, the Astoria fire department had arrived on the scene, preserved enough of Telephone to allow her to be rebuilt and placed back into service.

Fire on Columbia

The Columbia, a common steamboat name, was a sternwheeler build at 1893 at Little Dalles, and operating up the Arrow Lakes route of the Columbia River. The fire of Columbia was less spectacular than of Telephone, but the destruction was just as swift and more complete. On August 2, 1894, while lying at a woodlot just north of the Canadian border, a crewman went to sleep without extinguishing his pipe. Fire broke out, and the entire vessel burned and was completely destroyed in the span of about ten minutes. According to the Kootenay County Mail:

Unlike Telephone which was beached and which had the ready aid of a shoreside fire department, Columbia sank in eight feet of water and was a total loss.

Other vessels lost to fire

Ranger burned on November 4, 1869 off Sauvie Island

Sauvie Island

Sauvie Island, in the U.S. state of Oregon, originally Wapato Island or Wappatoo Island, is the largest island along the Columbia River, at 26,000 acres , and the largest river island in the United States...

while en route Portland

Portland, Oregon

Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

to Rainier

Rainier, Oregon

Rainier is a city in Columbia County, Oregon, United States. The population was 1,687 at the 2000 census. Rainier is located on the south bank of the Columbia River across from Kelso and Longview, Washington-History:...

.A.A. McCully burned on May 22, 1886 for an insurance loss of $12,000. The large and almost new Nakusp burned at Arrowhead

Arrowhead, British Columbia

Arrowhead is a former steamboat port and town at the head of Upper Arrow Lake in British Columbia, Canada. Though the initial site has been submerged beneath the waters of the lake, which is now part of the reservoir formed by Hugh Keenleyside Dam at Castlegar, the name continues in use as a...

(near the north end of Upper Arrow Lake, in British Columbia) on December 23, 1997.

J.N. Teal burned at Portland

Portland, Oregon

on October 22, 1907. Helen Hale burned in 1913 somewhere on the Upper Reach. Idaho, which had sunk Boneta in 1903, herself burned at Blackrock Bay in Lake Coeur d'Alene

Coeur d'Alene

Coeur d'Alene may refer to a people and related place names in the northwestern United States:* Coeur d'Alene Tribe, a First Nations/Native American tribe** Coeur d'Alene language** Coeur d'Alene Reservation** Coeur d'Alene v. Idaho, a U.S...

in 1915. Other boats destroyed by fire were R.C. Young, at Dove's Landing July 22, 1892 and Regulator, burned on ways at St. Johns, January 24, 1906. Fire was so common a cause of destruction that in some cases little information is available as to the cause, date, or place, such as Messenger in 1879, Mascot in 1911, and Saint Paul, burned somewhere on the Columbia

Columbia River

in 1915. Not every fire which destroyed a steamboat was ignited on the boat itself. Thus James Clinton was destroyed at Oregon City on April 23, 1861, after being ignited by sparks from burning buildings across the river.

Multiple vessels lost at once to fire

There were several instances of more than one steamboat being destroyed by fire at once, always while moored together. There was a spectacular fire in Wenatchee

Wenatchee, Washington

Wenatchee is located in North Central Washington and is the largest city and county seat of Chelan County, Washington, United States. The population within the city limits in 2010 was 31,925...

on July 8, 1915. At that time, most of the boats of the Columbia & Okanogan Steamboat Company were moored together at a barge on the riverbank. Chelan was closest inshore, with North Star on the outside. In between were Columbia and Okanogan. Sometime after 11:00 p.m, a fire broke out on North Star, and quickly spread to other boats moored together with her, and all were destroyed. Arson was suspected but never proved. The insurance on the boats had lapsed, so this fire, plus the sinking soon afterwards of the Enterprise, meant the end of Columbia and Okanogan Steamboat Co..

Pairs of steamboats were destroyed on at least two occasions. On July 22, 1922, Lewiston and Spokane were moored together at Lewiston and fire destroyed both of them. Another North Star burned at St. Joe, Idaho in 1929, taking with her Boneta moored alongside.

Rapids and Falls

Portland was swept over Willamette Falls

Willamette Falls

on March 17, 1857 and destroyed, killing her captain and two others. E.N. Cooke was lost in the Clackamas Rapids, just north of Oregon City. In 1890 Alexander Griggs was wrecked in 1905 at the Entiat Rapids. Selkirk was wrecked at Rock Island Rapids on May 15, 1906. Hercules was wrecked in 1933 at Three Mile Rapids.

Floods

Powerful floods could overwhelm a steamboat and carry out of control it into the bank of a river, a rock or other obstruction, which was exactly happened to the Georgie Burton in 1948 at the lower end of the Celilo Canal.

Ice

The Corps of Engineers sternwheeler Asotin was crushed in the ice at Arlington

Arlington, Oregon

Arlington is a city in Gilliam County, Oregon, United States. The account of how this city received its name varies: one tradition claims it was named after the lawyer Nathan Arlington Cornish; another tradition claims that the Southern inhabitants of this city had enough clout to rename the city...

in 1915.

High wind

Bonita was driven on a rock in the Columbia Gorge by a gale on December 7, 1892. Also in the Gorge, Dalles City was driven ashore by a sandstorm at Stevenson on September 14, 1912. A "hurricane" is described as having destroyed J.D. Farrell in Jennings Canyon in June 1898. Oakland was overcome by high winds on Upper Klamath Lake on October 6, 1912. Cowlitz was swamped by high winds and waves proceeding downriver from The Dalles in September 1931.

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