Olympian (sidewheeler)
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| History | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Olympian |
| Owner: |
 Oregon Railway and Navigation Company
|
| Route: | Columbia River, Puget Sound, Inside Passage |
| Completed: | 1883 |
| In service: | 1883 |
| Out of service: | 1890 |
| Fate: | Grounded while under tow near Straits of Magellan, 1906 |
| Notes: | Built in Wilmington, Delaware, hull of iron. Out of service 1890-1906. Wreck is still visible in satellite photographs. |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | inland steamship |
| Tonnage: | 1419 |
| Length: | 262 ft (80 m) |
| Beam: | 73 ft (22 m) over paddle guards |
| Draught: | 8 ft (2 m) |
| Installed power: | Coal-fired boiler, single-cylinder walking beam engine |
| Propulsion: | sidewheels |
| Sail plan: | schooner (auxiliary) |
| Notes: | Near sistership to Alaskan |
The steamship Olympian operated from 1884 to about 1890 on the Columbia River, Puget Sound, and the Inside Passage of British Columbia and Alaska. Olympian and her near-sistership Alaskan were known as “Henry Villard’s White Elephants.”Olympian the large iron sidewheeler should not be confused with Olympian (ex Telegraph) a wooden sternwheeler, which also served on Puget Sound and was one of the last commercial freight steamboats operating on the Columbia River.
Olympian was built in 1883, at Wilmington, Delaware by Harlan and Hollingsworth. She was a sidewheeler driven by a single cylinder vertical condensing walking-beam steam engine, which gave her high speed. Her iron hull was 262 feet (80 m) long, 73' in beam over the paddle guards, and rated at 1419 tons. She was built primarily for service on Puget Sound, as her draft of 8' feet meant she needed too much water to be of much use on most of the Columbia other than the lower river from Portland to Astoria. Mills described her as follows:
In 1884, Olympian was brought to the Pacific Northwest through the Straits of Magellan, all the way around South America; the Panama Canal would not be built for another 30 years.Olympian was built according to designs which had been popular and successful on Chesapeake Bay. When she arrived in the Pacific Northwest, these designs proved unsuited for the conditions, and the ship became a steady money-loser.
On arrival in 1884, Olympian was placed in service by the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company (then controlled by Henry Villard) on the Seattle-Victoria run that had previously been served by North Pacific. Olympian served on this route until 1886 when she was transferred to the Columbia River. There is a story that on one of the runs from Victoria to Port Townsend, five Chinese men seeking to enter the United States (apparently at a time when entry of Chinese nationals was barred by the Chinese Exclusion Act) hid within the paddle guards. Fortunately they survived (only to be deported back to Canada) although they were nearly drowned by the amount of water picked up by the paddle buckets.
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Wikipedia