Sternwheelers Have Found a Place in the Columbia Gorge for 170 Years
By Rodger Nichols
The singular ship that reintroduced the romance of sternwheelers to the Columbia River Gorge owes its existence to a peculiar set of circumstances.
Sternwheelers hauled freight and passengers along the Columbia before Oregon was even a state. The Jennie Clark was the first, placed in service in February 1855. The owners had a choice of steamship designs and picked a sternwheeler for several reasons. Propellers were too vulnerable to expensive-to-fix damage from rocks and other obstructions in the river. Sidewheelers were too difficult to steer and needed expensive dock facilities.
Sternwheelers had a much shallower draft. That was important at a time before dams regulated water flow and river depth fluctuated widely. The shallower the draft, the greater the range the vessel had in times of low water.
In their heyday, more than 400 sternwheelers—with names such as the Bailey Gatzert, Regulator, Hassalo, Cascade, and Colonel Wright—plied the waters of the Columbia and its tributaries. River traffic increased after the completion of locks to bypass the rapids at Cascades in 1896, giving the town the name Cascade Locks. The Celilo Canal, which bypassed Celilo Falls and miles of rapids, was completed in 1915.
Though this was a late boon to sternwheeler operators, their presence had already dwindled. Railroad and highway construction in the early 1920s finished off the trade. Wth dams creating slack water pools, river freight haulers could use deeper draft hulls and propellers, which were much faster in the water. The only sternwheelers remaining were used as tugboats and freight haulers.
The last hurrah for sternwheelers was a special 1947 excursion from Portland to deliver the Georgie Burton to The Dalles. It had been donated to the city with plans to create a maritime museum. The intent was to haul it out of the river and install a pool into which the sternwheel would fit and be able to churn water, as she had done for more than 40 years on the river.
But that project had not yet begun when, on Memorial Day 1948, the same flood that wiped out the town of Vanport wrenched the ship from its moorings. The keel broke, and she came to rest against the north wall of The Dalles-Celilo Canal near Big Eddy. In a way, it was a tragedy come full circle. The Georgie Burton launched in 1906, on the same day as a major San Francisco earthquake.
For more than a third of a century, no sternwheelers plied the waters of the Columbia. That only changed when a government project went sour.
Cascade Locks was a boom town during the construction of Bonneville Dam, but dropped from a population of 2,000 to 700 with its completion. For years, officials had been searching for a project to net local revenue.
According to an article in The Oregonian, “The Port of Cascade Locks is unique. It depends on tourism for practically all of its income. Trade and commercial fishing as a source of revenue are nonexistent.”
In January 1974, Oregon Sens. Mark Hatfield and Bob Packwood announced a $1.25 million grant to the Port of Cascade Locks to build a 1.25-mile aerial tramway to a 3,212-foot ridge above Benson Plateau.
It wasn’t a new idea and, in fact, had been proposed by private interests at various locations from Rooster Rock east. All of those requests involved the use of U.S. Forest Service land, and all were opposed by the agency. But a new proposal from a public agency gained its approval. The Forest Service went so far as to bend the boundaries of a proposed roadless area in such a way as to exclude the rock spur that would be the upper site of the tram.
The plans called for a 9,000-square-foot structure at the upper terminal, which would house a restaurant, tap room, observation deck, docking area, and exhibit hall. Water, waste disposal, and other services would have to be provided. A foot trail into the Benson Plateau was planned, and a road up to the site would have to be constructed.
Vigorous opposition from conservation groups and a growing anti-tram sentiment in the general public killed the idea. But with funds already allocated, Hatfield was able to eventually reassign them to a different project—construction of a new sternwheeler with modern efficiencies in a classic design.
The result was the sternwheeler Columbia Gorge, built by Nichols Boat Works of Hood River and completed in 1983. It has a length of 145 feet, a draft of 6 feet, a 17-foot diameter paddlewheel with Douglas fir paddles, and can haul up to 599 passengers at a stately 10 knots or 11.5 mph.
The final cost was $2.5 million, with a $1.1 million federal grant and port-issued revenue bonds for the remainder. Those bonds were paid off in 2004.
In its 42 years on the river, the Columbia Gorge proved a popular attraction, summering in Cascade Locks, wintering on the Willamette, and providing cruise experiences to an average of 100,000 riders a year.
Since then, other sternwheelers have appeared on the river, including the Rose, the Willamette Queen, the Queen of the West, and the American Empress. But the Columbia Gorge has a special link to the earlier paddlewheel era. In the pilothouse atop the 3-deck vessel is the ship’s bell from the Bailey Gatzert, returned to service 58 years after that legendary ship retired in 1925.