Lake Washington Steamboats and Ferries

Lake Washington steamboats and ferries operated from about 1875 to 1951, transporting passengers and vehicles, and moving freight and towing barges and log rafts across Lake Washington, is a large lake immediately to the east of Seattle, Washington. Before modern highways and bridges were built, the only means of crossing the lake, other than the traditional canoe, was by steamboat, and, later, by ferry. While there was no easily navigable connection to Puget Sound, the Lake Washington Ship Canal now connects Lake Washington to Lake Union, and from there Puget Sound is reached by way of the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks.

Read more about Lake Washington Steamboats And Ferries:  Beginnings, Rise of Anderson Steamboat Company, Construction of Steamboats On Lake, Routes On The Lake, Ferries On Lake Washington, Seaplane Collision, End of Business

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    “These beginnings of commerce on a lake in the wilderness are very interesting,—these larger white birds that come to keep company with the gulls.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “The city of Washington is in some respects self-contained, and it is easy there to forget what the rest of the United States is thinking about. I count it a fortunate circumstance that almost all the windows of the White House and its offices open upon unoccupied spaces that stretch to the banks of the Potomac ... and that as I sit there I can constantly forget Washington and remember the United States.”
    —Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)

    “Hast ever ben in Omaha
    Where rolls the dark Missouri down,
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    An empty wagon through the town?
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    Where all the steamboats are aground,
    And all the houses are afloat?...
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    For God’s sake, reader, go around it!”
    —For the State of Nebraska, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)