In 1885, Oregon was chartered to the Royal Navy as an auxiliary cruiser, and her success in this role resulted in the Admiralty subsidizing suitable ships for quick conversion in the event of a crisis.

[1] Arizona and Alaska only allowed the Guion Line to schedule fortnightly sailings with express liners in each direction.

[2] When Cunard started to build a new fleet for its weekly Liverpool – New York express service, Guion Line ordered Oregon to retain the Atlantic records won by Alaska.

The screw propeller was twenty-four feet in diameter with a shaft that consisted of fifteen separate parts made of crucible steel.

[3] The main public room, the grand saloon was in the forepart of the ship and described at the time as "capable of dining the whole of the 340 cabin passengers."

The wood work of the ladies' drawing room, the Captain's cabin, and the principal entrance to the saloons came from the State of Oregon.

On the upper deck near the entrance of the grand saloon was the smoking room, which is paneled in Spanish mahogany and has a mosaic floor.

[1] In March 1885, during the Russian war scare over Afghanistan, the British Navy chartered sixteen passenger liners for conversion to auxiliary cruisers.

Oregon proved successful because of her speed, and the Navy started to pay annual subsidies to passenger lines to make suitable ships available on call.

[6] With the completion of Umbria and Etruria, Oregon was now redundant on the New York express service, and Cunard announced that she was to be transferred to the Liverpool – Boston route.

At about 04:30am on 14 March – only a few hours from her scheduled arrival in New York City (about 15 miles to the west) – she collided with an unidentified schooner, most likely Charles H. Morse, which disappeared in those waters about the same time.

Hurst, who had been travelling in First Class along with her husband, was one of several passengers who later claimed that during the evacuation, a group of stokers and trimmers from the boiler rooms had tried to push ahead of the women and children to get into the lifeboats, and noted to have seen the first boat launched to be completely filled with them.

She then noted that the officers in charge of the evacuation and several male passengers managed to regain order on the boat deck over these men.

[9] Finally, at 8:30 AM, the pilot boat Phantom and the schooner Fannie A. Gorham responded to Oregon's emergency flares and boarded all passengers and crew.