Shipwrecks of the inland Columbia River

Steamboats on the Columbia River system were wrecked for many reasons, including striking rocks or logs ("snags"), fire, boiler explosion, or puncture or crushing by ice.

Thus, on December 30, 1907, Annie Comings was rammed by the barque Europe in the Willamette River near St. Johns, and sank in three minutes, fortunately with no loss of life.

Clatsop Chief was sunk in a similar collision with the steamship Oregon on February 28, 1881, that time four people drowned.

[1] Shoshone, which, with Norma, was one of the only two steamboats brought down the rapids of Hells Canyon,[3] struck a rock and sank at Salem in 1874.

[1] Spokane hit a snag on the Coeur d'Alene River on April 5, 1887, sank and drowned a number of prominent people.

By 1852, the problem had gotten so bad that Congress enacted a law setting out detailed standards for inspection of steamboats and licensing of officers.

To overcome the inertia of the vessel and get it safely away from the shore, perhaps against opposing winds and currents, a good head of steam was needed, and it was better to have too much than not enough.

[6]Early steamboat experience in the Oregon Country was unfortunately consistent with the Mississippi river boiler explosion pattern.

Canemah was the first steamboat in Oregon to suffer a boiler explosion, on August 8, 1853, at or shortly below Champoeg landing on the Willamette River.

[9] This may not have been entirely fair, as failure to maintain good steam could have readily lead to the loss of the boat by being swept over the nearby Willamette Falls, which was precisely the circumstance that happened a few years later, when a boat for lack of power was caught by the current and washed over the falls, killing the two men who hadn't been able to jump free and catch a rescuer's line.

[1] As with Canemah, this was another where the steamer was under way at the time of the explosion, and yet surprisingly no loss of life occurred, although Elk's captain was blown out of the pilot house and into a cottonwood tree on the riverbank.

[1] Although by 1875 the steamboat act of 1852 had been in effect for over 20 years, the Senator's explosion just after taking on passengers fit well with the old pattern of loading on extra steam to make a quick start.

[S]he pulled out of her landing at Alder Street in Portland, dropped down to Oregon Steamship Company dock, and loaded some freight and passengers for upriver.

The Senator arrived abreast the landing and shut off her engines preparatory to coming alongside her wheel idling, when her boiler gave way.

The result would be either weakening of the metal over time or too quick a buildup in steam pressure, either one causing failure of the boiler jacket, that is, an explosion.

Hunter makes the point that in 1838, when the spectacular explosion of the Moselle on the Ohio River near Cincinnati, caused a congressional investigation, that there was no existing body of knowledge or professional tradition for steamboat engineers.

[5] By the time of the Senator explosion in 1875 and certainly by that of Annie Faxon in 1893, that would no longer have been true, and professional standards and skills would have been well established.

[1] Hunter well summarized the causes of fire in wooden steamboats: Thin floors and partitions, light framing and siding, soft and resinous woods, the whole dried out by sun and wind and impregnated with oil and turpentine from paint, made the superstructure of the steamboat little more than an orderly pile of kindling wood.

[5] Some examples of how rapidly the fire could destroy a vessel include the Telephone, near Astoria, and, far up river, Columbia, just north of the Canada–US border.

The crack Telephone, one of the fastest on the lower Columbia, in November 1887, burned near Astoria, with 140 passengers and 32 crew on board, under the command of Captain U.B.

Professor Mills describes the scene: As soon as [Captain Scott] heard the alarm, he remembered fires on the Ohio steamers, and swung his wheel hard over to head for the shore.

The engineer also heard the alarm and, feeling the long, trim boat heel for the turn, opened his throttle wide.

Normally that would sweep the fire the length of the steamer, but he took the chance, and the Telephone cut for the bank st twenty miles an hour, crunching onto a shore of rolling pebbles that absorbed the shock.

[14][15]Captain Scott remained in the pilot house until its steps had burned, then dove out the window just before the boat's upper works collapsed.

By then, the Astoria fire department had arrived on the scene, preserved enough of Telephone to allow her to be rebuilt and placed back into service.

[16]Unlike Telephone which was beached and which had the ready aid of a shoreside fire department, Columbia sank in eight feet of water and was a total loss.

[1] The large and almost new Nakusp burned at Arrowhead (near the north end of Upper Arrow Lake, in British Columbia) on December 23, 1897.

[1] Powerful floods could overwhelm a steamboat and carry out of control it into the bank of a river, a rock or other obstruction, which was exactly what happened to the Georgie Burton in 1948 at the lower end of the Celilo Canal.