[1][2][3] Starr was a sidewheel steamer with a single-cylinder walking-beam engine, 148' long, 28' in beam over the hull, and 9 foot depth of hold, and rated at 473 tons.

[1][3][4] In 1881, the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company, under Henry Villard bought out the Starr Line and all their steamers, including Geo.

E. Starr hard in a rate war with an older sidewheeler on the Sound, Eliza Anderson.

[3] George E. Starr was one of the first vessels, along with the sternwheeler Fannie Lake, Annie M. Pence, Utopia, and Rapid Transit, purchased by Joshua Green and his partners of the La Conner Trading and Transportation Company.

E. Starr was considered sufficiently elegant at that time to allow President Rutherford B. Hayes, visiting Seattle, to spend a night in one of her cabins.

Caine, the Starr was made ready to, and did in fact depart for Skagway and Dyea on August 3, 1897, with 90 passengers and a cargo of 100 horses.

E. Starr survived her service in Alaska, and by 1904 was running in Puget Sound again, under the ownership of the La Conner Trading and Transportation Company.

On alternating days, Starr and Utopia left Pier 2, at the foot of Yesler Street in Seattle bound for Whatcom, Fairhaven, and Anacortes, with the Starr on her trips going on to Blaine where travelers could make connection with a steamer bound for Point Roberts.

We had a full load of canned salmon on her and she was so slow it cost us more to feed the passengers than the passage money amounted to.

E. Starr was abandoned about 1921 in (or was eventually towed to) Lake Union, where she rotted and slowly sank.