The vessel was active on Puget Sound in the early decades of the 1900s.

Vashon was built for the Vashon Navigation Company which was then engaged in fierce competition with the Tacoma and Burton Navigation Company for the freight and passenger business on the steamboat routes in the Tacoma and Vashon Island areas of Puget Sound.

Vashon was the first steamboat constructed by the Martinolich Shipbuilding Company, which in 1904, under the company's founder, John Martinolich, a Croatian immigrant, had set up a shipyard on Vashon Island at the small settlement of Dockton.

The Vashon Navigation Company intended Vashon to replace their steamer Norwood which had not performed well against the Burton, a new vessel placed in service in 1905 by the rival Tacoma and Burton Navigation Co. Vashon competed with Burton, and later Burton's replacement, Magnolia by racing from landing to landing trying to be the first to pick up passengers or embark freight.

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