Final Decline
The Bailey Gatzert excursion runs up the Columbia came to an end in 1917 when the Bailey was transferred to Seattle, Washington, to serve the Seattle-Bremerton route, then much in demand because of wartime marine construction at the Bremerton Navy Yard. Railroad and highway construction in the early 1920s finished off the steamboat trade. By 1923, major passenger and freight steamboat operations on the lower and middle Columbia had ceased, except for towboats, and until 1937, the passenger and freight boats of the Harkins Transportation Company on the lower Columbia, such as Georgiana. For a brief time, in 1942, the now-famous Puget Sound propeller steamer Virginia V was brought down to the Columbia river, thus becoming (although it was not known at the time) the last survivor of the wooden steamboat fleets of both Puget Sound and of the Columbia River.
Read more about this topic: Steamboats Of The Columbia River
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