Steamboats of Yaquina Bay and Yaquina River

A stage line was established between Corvallis and Toledo, which ran every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (and just once weekly during winter mud) taking twelve hours to arrive at Elk City.

Once there, travelers would stay overnight in a hotel, then board a steamer bound down river and across the bay to Newport, where a small wharf had been built.

[4] When a survey by the United States Army Corps of Engineers showed the harbor at Yaquina Bay to be deeper than had been supposed, interest in development of the area boomed.

By taking the train from Portland to Yaquina City, and boarding a ship there, a traveler could save 40 hours off the trip to San Francisco.

These wrecks, and financial difficulties for the railroad, left the route unable to compete with the better transportation network centered on Portland.

In 1913, one Zenas Copeland, owner of the Mud Hen, received a contract to run the ferry route to the south shore.

The roads were bad or nonexistent at the time, so the only way to the seaside hotels at Newport was to cross the Yaquina Bay by steamer.

On March 7, 1896, the propeller steamer Volante, which had been built at Oneatta in 1892 for the Yaquina Bay service, burned at her mooring at the Newport waterfront.

As now, the summer was the high tourist season in Newport, and the steamers and small craft on the bay played a major role.

In the evening, the band played for the arrival of the Yaquina boat and also to entertain crowds waiting for the mail at the post office on Front Street.

Eventually Newport was converted to gasoline power, and put to tow duties for the unpowered barges Elk and Julia.