Lake Washington Steamboats and Ferries - Rise of Anderson Steamboat Company

Rise of Anderson Steamboat Company

Steamboat operations on Lake Washington eventually became almost the sole province of one firm, Anderson Steamboat Company, founded by John L. Anderson, an immigrant from Sweden. His brother, Adolph Anderson, was also a steamboat master on the lake. The company’s headquarters was at Leschi Park, and the company had a shipyard across the lake at Houghton.

Anderson had worked his way up from deckhand to skipper of the C.C. Calkins, and in 1895, he was able to buy his one steamboat, the Winnifred, which burned the next year, 1896, at Leschi Park. Anderson then bought for $1,600, the aging propeller steamer Quickstep, which had been built at Astoria in 1877. Quickstep also burned in 1896, and Captain Anderson, undaunted, salvaged her engines to place in a new boat he would build at his own yard, Lady of the Lake.

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