She was named after Robert R. Thompson, one of the shareholders of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, the firm that built the vessel.

Passenger spaces were nicely fitted out and the ladies' cabin boasted carpets, plush settees, and polished panelled walls.

Rather she deliberately was built for comfort and truly qualified for such overblown adjectives as 'palace boat' and 'finest cuisine afloat,' whipped up by enthusiastic passenger agents of the day.[6]R.R.

She was said to be "in every respect the equal of the Wide West", another similar but more well-known steamer operating on the lower Columbia and Willamette rivers at the time.

The vessel was part of a much larger transportation mechanism, designed to use the Columbia River as a highway to reach the mines of Idaho and Eastern Oregon, and the newly established farms and ranchlands of the Inland Empire.

Thompson would operate in conjunction with the Wide West,[1] which would carry the traffic up to the Cascades from Portland and points on the lower river.

The trip to Portland was accomplished in two hours and fifty minutes, and she steamed past Ash Street dock at 12:17 p.m.

[1][6] The passage of the Thompson through the six-mile long Cascades Rapids in 6 minutes 40 seconds was a record which was approached but never beaten.

Thompson, with Captain McNulty still in command, together with Lurline transported 1,500 people to an equal number of others at the Cascades to witness Hassalo's run.