----The Spray, the Cascadillia, the Harvest Queen the names have a ring to them, even though it's been many years since the sound of their whistles floated out over the everyday sounds of life in the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley.
They are just a few in a long line of steamboats which served the area from the gold rush days until the last one left Lewiston in 1940.
Lewiston is believed to have been founded when a steamboat stopped to unload cargo in 1861. The vessel was carrying cargo for the Oro Fino mines, but backtracked when it got as far as the rapids at Big Eddy, just below Lenore on the Clearwater River.
From that time until 1940, the steamboats made regular runs to Lewiston, ferrying people and goods to and from the coast. Some of these great river vessels could carry 300 tons of cargo and several hundred people.
In the 1860s, it was the gold rush which fueled these vessels, bringing in supplies, whiskey, gamblers and eager prospectors and taking back gold dust, as well as the unfortunate ones who did not strike it rich.
The Spray, Cascadillia, Colonel George Wright and the Nez Perce Chief were among the paddle-wheelers making the Columbia and Snake River run. The Colonel George Wright, built in 1858, was the first steamer on the upper Columbia and Snake. Later the Spokane and the Harvest Queen were among those hauling grain and people.
The Spray was built in 1862, and made the Celilo to Lewiston run. Celilo Falls was on the Columbia near The Dalles, and was later flooded by the dam. The Spray is believed to have paid for itself several times over in the first few months it was in service.
But the Nez Perce Chief had the reputation of ferrying the most valuable cargo ever brought down the river in a single trip: gold dust valued at $382,000, on Oct. 29, 1863.
The Yakima, which was the fastest steamboat on the river in the 1860s, had 26 ''sumptuous'' staterooms, and could carry 200 tons of freight. The Yakima made the run from Celilo to Lewiston in 41 hours and 36 minutes at one time, setting a record.
It was profitable business, operating the steamboats, and the Spray was not the only boat reputed to have paid for itself in a few trips.
The Oregon Steam Navigation Co., which was organized in 1860, controlled most of the traffic on these sections of the Snake and Columbia rivers. It was valued at $172,000 in 1860, and sold 19 years later for $5 million.
At Lewiston the boats docked along Snake River Avenue, and in the 1880s and '90s one would arrive and depart daily, with the exception of Sundays.
Almota and Riparia, downstream from Lewiston, were well-known steamboat stops, mainly to pick up grain.
The boats also ran on other sections of the rivers in the region.
The Cascadillia steamed between Lewiston and Spalding on the Clearwater River. The J. M. Hannaford was built at Spalding to be used for hauling supplies and equipment for railroad construction up the Clearwater River. Steamboats also went up Hells Canyon for many years, using steel cables to get through the rapids.
The Annie Faxon ran up the Clearwater above Big Eddy after the Corps of Engineers blasted the rock out of the rapids in 1889. That was before the Annie Faxon's boilers exploded in the most serious steamboat accident on record in this area.
The Annie Faxon was launched in 1877, and was captained by E. W. Baughman since its christening. When the vessel blew up, however, on Aug. 14, 1893, it was being captained by his son, mate H. C. Baughman.
Earlier that same year the Annie Faxon's boilers had been condemned, and the inspector who exmained them ordered their replacement when the boat tied up for the winter.
The steamboat was about 40 miles downstream from Lewiston, and had been hailed from Wade's Bar to stop and pick up fruit, when the disaster occurred.
The Lewiston Teller reported: ''Everything above the lower deck is blown to splinter. The hull is badly shattered and has settled down on the bar about 40 feet from the shore.
''Most of the wreckage has floated away and the rest lay in a confused heap on the wreck of the hull. ... To look at the wreck as it lies, the wonder is how any person escaped alive.'' (Photo of the wreck on Page 17)
Eight persons died in the explosion, and only three of the 25 persons on the steamboat were not injured.
Baughman walked 12 miles to Almota to telephone the news to Lewiston, and a physician left for the scene. Two physicians also arrived from Walla Walla and Spokane.
The hull of the Annie Faxon was salvaged and used in the building of the steamer Lewiston.
But the Lewiston, along with its sister ship, Spokane, burned to the water line on July 13, 1922, as it was moored at the Snake River Avenue landing.
of the Tribune
