He formed the Kootenay River Navigation Company to build and operate the vessel, which he named after J. D. Farrell, a wealthy mining investor from Spokane, Washington.

In contrast to some of the other vessels built in the region, she was competently designed and constructed by skilled shipbuilders brought out from Stillwater, Minnesota.

The construction of Farrell prompted Armstrong to hire veteran shipwright Louis Pacquet from Portland, Oregon to build a comparable vessel, the sternwheeler North Star.

[2] Captain M. L. McCormack commanded Farrell on the vessel's first trip up the Kootenay River to Fort Steele in British Columbia.

[2] On June 4, 1898, with McCormack in command on the seventh trip, Farrell was wrecked in Jennings Canyon when hurricane-force winds blew the vessel off course into a rock.