Steamboats of the Columbia River, Wenatchee Reach

By the first decade of the 20th century wheat farming had expanded into Douglas County's "Big Bend" region of the Columbia near Bridgeport, and the valleys of the Okanogan, Methow, Chelan, and Entiat rivers were rapidly developing.

This was an important difference from the Mississippi-Ohio River system, which in the right season, and with a canal around the Falls of the Ohio, was navigable from New Orleans to Pittsburgh, an enormous distance.

The rapids and shoals separating the Wenatchee Reach from the lower Columbia were practically unnavigable, although Captain William Gray did try to establish a steamboat route up the river by taking City of Ellensburg up through Priest and Rock Islands Rapids, with the aid of a cable anchored to the bank and then wrapped around the capstan.

Pringle, Selkirk, Gerone, Columbia, Oro, Camano, North Star, Chelan, and Okanogan.

None of the vessels burned was insured, and the company's last boat, Enterprise, sank just four days later, on July 12, 1915, at Brewster's Landing.