Steamboats of Grays Harbor and Chehalis and Hoquiam Rivers

Steamboats operated on Grays Harbor, a large coastal bay in the State of Washington, and on the Chehalis and Hoquiam rivers which flow into Grays Harbor near Aberdeen, a town on the eastern shore of the bay.

The first riverine steamboat to operate in the Grays Harbor area was the Enterprise, originally built in 1855 above Willamette Falls, at Canemah (now a part of Oregon City).

The Fraser Canyon Gold Rush was short-lived but lucrative for steamboat operators (Enterprise once made $25,000 in a single day), and when it ended, Enterprise was brought to Grays Harbor, where she was wrecked in 1862 on the Chehalis River.

[1][2] In 1887, Henry H. McDonald, originally from Nova Scotia, arrived in the area and entered the steamboat business.

In about 1891, Dove served briefly on Grays harbor under George Emerson before being sold to Puget Sound interests.

Waterfront of Aberdeen, Washington in 1912, along the Chehalis River, showing a four-masted schooner loading lumber, and on the north side of the river, a sternwheeler moored at a dock