The federal government began building snagboats to remove obstructions and facilitate river based commerce.

W. T. Preston used the main single expansion reciprocating steam engines, as well as many pumps and other hardware from her 1914 predecessor Swinomish.

In many respects the W. T. Preston is similar to the Samson V, a former Canadian Department of Public Works snagboat now preserved as a museum in New Westminster, British Columbia.

The original W. T. Preston was a 163-foot, wooden-hulled vessel which pulled snags, performed light dredging, and otherwise worked the waters of Puget Sound until 1939; when, the Army Corps of Engineers built a new superstructure atop a welded steel hull and transferred the stern wheel, main engines, smokestack, foredeck equipment, and other items onto the second WT Preston.

This interpretive center houses artifacts, models, maps and other historical text and information about the snagboats that maintained the area's navigable waterways.