Historic Hood River
Next Port, Hood River
1-15-2014
Notes
This fine Davidson image shows the steamer Bailey Gatzert passing through the Hood River delta at high water, just north of the train depot.
Category: Downtown Hood River
Tags: 1910s, Bailey Gatzert, Columbia River, Davidson, Hood River delta, ship
Tags: 1910s, Bailey Gatzert, Columbia River, Davidson, Hood River delta, ship
charlott
Isn’t that a beautiful boat. It is actually bigger than I thought it was, but this I think is the best picture to give an over all view of it. It least it appears to have adequate life boats, which would certainly be a plus on the old then wild Columbia River. Appears that the passengers are basically on the front watching the activities of loading and unloading. Wouldn’t it be fine to go back in time and be standing there observing……….
Rawhyde
Looking at all of the people on the front, I wonder how often people rushing to the exit would prematurely ground these old beauties as they came into shallow delta ports like this?
Does anybody know how often a boat like this would dock at Hood River? Weekly, monthly?
l.e.
I think this might be one of the prettiest photos I have seen of a steamship on the Columbia.
Seems like you can almost feel the excitement of arrival and hear the whistle.
Would have been nip and tuck working its way into there. It must have backed out to the Columbia?
From a previous photo, we now know what those slanting boards were used for.
Longshot2
The passel of phone lines crossing here would indicate that the ones we saw in the downtown Hood River photo a few days ago might well have been trancontinental lines.
Wonder when Hood River got its first telephone system?
Jill Stanford
Oh I agree with Charlott! What fun that must have been – whistle blowing, steam being made up, flag flying! I was a volunteer at Champoeg State Park and we had quite a bit about the Bailey Gatzert and other steamships that plied the Willamette and Columbia. So sad they are all gone except for the little one that tootles its way in and out of Cascade Locks.
l.e.
A few facts from Wikipedia about the Bailey Gatzert:
Named for the first Jewish Mayor of Seattle.
Built and launched at Ballard, Washington in 1890 by John J. Holland.
Dimensions as originally built were 177′ long, 32.2′ wide, and 8′ depth-of-hold, and rated at 560 tons capacity.
Taken to Tacoma and back to Seattle on her first voyage.
In 1892, the Bailey was bought by the Columbia River & Puget Sound Navigation Company, and transferred to the Columbia river, where she ran on the Portland"“Astoria route, and, later, from Portland to The Dalles.
She could travel from The Dalles to Portland in just over five hours.
In 1907 she was rebuilt bigger and stronger and acquired a five tone chime whistle.
By 1915 steam travel was dying out on the Columbia and in 1917 she returned to Puget Sound as a ferry.
Taken out of service in 1926.
Her name board and whistle are in a Seattle museum.
Most steamboats burned wood, at an average rate of 4 cords an hour. Areas without much wood, such as the Columbia River east of Hood River, required wood to be hauled in and accumulated at wood lots along the river…
Arlen Sheldrake
four cords of wood per hour translates for me to one heck of a lot of work…I wonder how many stokers were on staff…..and that is just the stoking, then you add wood prep on shore and loading it on-board….wow, life is sure easier today. bet that five chime whistle was a beautiful sound….
Charlott
In the very early days of the steamers above The Dalles there were those who wagoned great loads of wood down from the Simcoe range and sold for wood for the boats. Just like in the Biggs – Wasco area, as Sherman County didn’t have available wood for fires. That is how my great-grandfather arrived in Hood River. He owned a lumber, hardware and wood yard in Wasco, so was always on the look out for wood. Heard about some wood available in Hood River, came down to look at it, fell in love, and bought 160 acres……….