Georgiana was built at Joseph Supple's yard in Portland, Oregon just as railroads and highways would end the days of steamboats on the Columbia river and all other inland waterways of the Pacific Northwest.

Georgiana was small (242 tons displacement, 145' length, 22.5' beam) compared to some of the other ships that ran on the river in those days, such as the aging T.J. Potter and the magnificent (and recently rebuilt) Bailey Gatzert.

Her principal competitor in the early 1920s was a similarly designed steam propeller Astorian (ex Nisqually), built in 1911 to serve the Tacoma-Olympia route, and brought around to the Columbia River in 1918.

The big paddle-wheelers had all disappeared by then, but the smaller Georgiana and Astorian continued to service the small towns along the Columbia that had no road or rail access, like Cathlamet, Pillar Rock, Eureka, Skamokawa, and Brookfield, often racing each other on the same schedule between Portland and Astoria.

Captain Riggs had begun in steamboating in 1887 on the Isabel on the Willamette and Yamhill rivers, and later served on many famous boats throughout the Pacific Northwest, including Multnomah, Telegraph and Telephone.