She was propelled by two non-condensing steam engines, with 32" cylinders, each with an eight-foot stroke, and generating (together or singly is not certain) 1,700 horsepower.

James William Troup, one of the most famous steamboat captains in the West, as well as the owner of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company, the builders of the T. J. Potter.

Where those of the lesser side-wheelers were pierced by simple fan designs, hers were jigsawed into an intricate floral pattern that made them works of Victorian art.

A divided, curving staircase led up to the grand saloon, and her passengers could observe themselves ascending it in the plate glass mirror, which was the largest in that part of the West.

Colored sunlight from the stained glass windows of the clerestory gleamed on soft carpeting and the mellowed wood and ivory of a grand piano.

[2] By comparison, the fastest steamboat on the Columbia River at that time was the Potter's competitor Telephone, which on July 2, 1887, had made the 105-mile (169 km) run from Portland to Astoria in 4 hours and 34 minutes.

After that, she was transferred to Puget Sound to compete with another famous steamboat, the Bailey Gatzert, which was owned by the Seattle Steam Navigation and Transportation Company.

Even so, the T.J. Potter was one of the fastest steamboats on Puget Sound, and is reported in 1890 to have bested the famous sternwheeler Bailey Gatzert in a race.

The Potter's owners, Oregon Railway and Navigation Company, struck an anti-competitive deal with Shaver Transportation, whereby the Shaver boats, including the Sarah Dixon, would stay off the Portland-Astoria route in return for a monthly subsidy from Oregon Railway and Navigation Company.

Staples, Ed Scott, Fred Ware, Claude Cooper, Wendell Smith, and Henry Hoffman.

Although it was later replaced by the Georgiana, a sleek and narrow twin-screw steamer, I preferred the T.J. Potter to the smaller and faster rival.

On the main deck were staterooms for the elderly, the rich, or the newly married; and a continuous seat ran all the way around the stern.

If the weather was good, there would be deck chairs on the open afterdeck, and the glass-enclosed lounge cabins were comfortable on cold or rainy days.