Historic Hood River
Nichols Boat Works Building
8-14-2019
Notes
Here’s another Nichols Boat Works image courtesy of Rodger Nichols. This building predated the basin. A little chronology: the Hood River delta was flooded by the Bonneville Dam in 1937. An extension of 1st Street called “the mole” was built shortly thereafter, and Nichols Boat Works saw that as a perfect place to build ships. This building was constructed, along with a small marina. The Nichols Basin was then constructed around the building and marina, starting in 1961. Eventually this building on the west side of the basin was replaced by the larger building on the south side of the basin.
Category: Downtown Hood River
Tags: 1970s, boatworks, marina, Nichols, Nichols Basin, Nichols Boat Works, ship
Tags: 1970s, boatworks, marina, Nichols, Nichols Basin, Nichols Boat Works, ship
Norma
I can remember watching the launching of one of their boats when I was young.
nels
Was the Nichols family previously involved in boat building? Prior to 1937?
Bill Seaton
I remember walking out to the end of the mole when I was young.
Cecelia
Nels, the museum research committee is currently researching Nichols Boat Works for a special project and we have found that George Mark Nicols and his brother were orchardists who repaired a tug and thus decided to go into the boat repair and building business. Perhaps some of the Nichols family can add more to this story if they read this post. I’m glad to see mention of the "mole" since few I ask remember it.
Rodger Nichols
The company operated for 57 years, from 1941 to 1998. During the 57 years, the workers built more than 350 boats and barges of all descriptions, and it owes its beginning to a fire and a foreclosure.
The fire took place on a boat owned by my great uncle Luke, who was a longtime riverman on the Columbia and Willamette.
The foreclosure took place on my grandfather’s apple orchard near Zillah in the Yakima Valley. It was the tail end of the Depression, and the apple business hadn’t gone well. So when his brother Luke asked him to come help rebuild his boat — this time with a steel hull — he took the offer.
It took the two of them just three months to build the 30-foot boat on a temporary ways on the Washington side of the Columbia.
Ways, by the way, are the permanent skids used to launch a boat. When it came time to launch, the skids would be covered with skid grease, a heavy black grease that would leap 10 feet to get on your clean work clothes and was very difficult to remove.
It went so well, and drew so much attention, that they decided to set up a permanent shop. They bought a piece of land on the Oregon side from a fellow named Eph Winans for $500 at $100 a year.
My Uncle Jean tells how the family put everything into a Diamond T truck that was owned by another one of grandpa’s brothers, and sort of like the Grapes of Wrath, here they came into Hood River. Uncle Jean remembers that they put fifty cents worth of gas into the truck at Goldendale to get them to Hood River.
The piece of land they bought was on what was called the mole, and it was reached by an extension of first street,This was in 1941, and the river-level Highway 30 had been built, just about where Interstate 84 now goes, but you’ll have to imagine that everything north of that point was water. All the land north of that was added in the 1950s and 1960s with dredging and filling operations by the Port of Hood River.
Grandpa Mark and Great Uncle Luke, along with my Uncle Frank, built that first boat on speculation, and unbeknownst to the fellow that sold them the land, they named it the Eph Winans. They sold it, and started another, and that was the beginning.
Pat A
Thanks, Great addition Roger!
Bill
Trying to find any ship drawing for the Tug Cougar built by Nichols Boat Works.