Before modern highways and bridges were built, the only means of crossing the lake, other than the traditional canoe or rowboat, was by steamboat, and, later, by ferry.

In the 1870s the sternwheeler Lena C. Gray was built in Seattle, and operated on Lake Washington most of the time, towing barges.

The Lee yard is believed to have built the following ships that worked Lake Washington and Puget Sound: the small steam scow Squak, Laura Maud, Elfin, Hattie Hansen (also known as Sechelt), and Mist.

Hattie Hansen only served on the lake until the next year, when she was brought down the Black and Duwamish rivers and placed on the Seattle-Dogfish Bay route under Capt.

Quickstep also burned in 1896, and Captain Anderson, undaunted, salvaged her engines to place in a new boat he would build at his own yard, Lady of the Lake.

Simon Brunn built at Lenora the steamer Juanita for passenger service on the Kirkland-Madison Park run.

[13]) Additionally, to serve the crowds at the Alaska–Yukon–Pacific Exposition, Cyrene was rebuilt and enlarged, her pilot house being moved to the upper deck.

[14] Captain Anderson preferred mystic-sounding names for his boats, of which by 1909 he had fourteen, including among them the Atalanta, Aquilo, and Xanthus.

Leschi Park was a popular resort, for example over 40,000 people went there on the Fourth of July, 1908, and this was good for the water tour business which was an important part of the Anderson firm’s trade.

In 1917, the small steamer Swan and, reportedly Urania were transferred to Puget Sound, where they continued to be operated by Anderson Steamboat Company in passenger service to Port Orchard.

[17] In 1926, the steamers Bremerton (ex-Kitsap) and Reliance, belonging to the Kitsap County Transportation Company, were rafted up together with the Anderson tug Dart.

Later, the Anderson yard at Houghton built the steel-hulled propeller ferry Lincoln (580 tons, 147.3' long, 43' on the beam, with 12.6' depth of hold).

Later, the Anderson yard built another steam propeller ferry, the Issaquah, a double-ender (288 tons, 114' long, 38' on the beam, with 9.0 depth of hold), which included then-new features such as upper levels for vehicles above the main deck and an adjustable loading ramp.

In 1913, the Port of Seattle built for service on Lake Washington, the large steel-hulled sidewheel ferry Leschi (433 tons, 169' long, 33' foot beam, 8.3' draft).

To keep his customers, Captain Anderson generously offer free service on his boats Fortuna and Atlanta to the launching of the Leschi.

[15] However, during World War II the ferries carried workers to the Lake Washington Shipyard, where auxiliary ships were built for the U.S. Navy, and made a tidy profit.