Steamboats of Coos Bay - Establishment of Inland Water Routes

Establishment of Inland Water Routes

Inland riverboats were used to navigate the bay and the several rivers flow that flow into it. Many of the passages were quite narrow, for example Beaver Slough was aptly named, as every night beavers built dams across the slough which had to be dismantled to allow the passage of Mud Hen.

Nat H. Lane and W.H. Troup, both steamboat captains from the Columbia River, began steamboat operations on Coos Bay in 1873. They built and operated Messenger, doing business as the Coos Bay and Coquille Transportation Company. One feature of Coos Bay was that one shallow southern arm reaches south almost to Beaver Slough, a shallow north-extending branch of the Coquille River. Starting in 1869, a mule-hauled portage was built to Beaver Slough, and in 1874, a steam portage railroad replaced it. This was a good shortcut between Marshfield, as Coos Bay was then called, and Coquille, and it also eliminated the need to cross the hazardous Coos and Coquille bars by the ocean.

Frank Lowe had a shipyard in Marshfield, and in the early part of the century he produced many vessels for the Mosquito Fleet, including the propeller Coquille, and the sternwheelers Millicoma and Rainbow.

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