Cars on Barge at Dock,PCHS
When my friend Sue turned around in class that day and asked me about the ferries that used to cross the bay and I so confidently replied, “Never!” it began a line of dialogue among us old-timers (ahem!) that threatens to continue for quite a while.
Several people have corroborated my information that, while there were passenger and mail boats on our bay, there were never ferries in the sense that we think of them. Not car ferries. And, maybe that still holds true, but Steve Rogers, President of the Pacific County Historical Society, has added information that makes me think more than ever that it’s just a matter of semantics.
Cars on Barge, PCHS
What Steve sent were three pictures and a news article. Two of the photos show cars being barged (Yes! “Barge” is the operable word here!) across the bay from Nahcotta – presumably. He doesn’t say if the photographs are labeled on the back with explanatory material, but I certainly agree the one looking toward far-off land looks like our bay with the Long Island in the background.
The news article is from the South Bend Journal (Steve thinks) but, unfortunately is not dated. The headline reads Tokeland Ferry Will Start About August 20. According to the article, a Mr. Martin Haven had applied for an exclusive franchise for a ferry boat carrying twelve cars and ferry slips were being built in Tokeland and in South Bend. The article goes on to say:
Ford cars will be charged $3 one way and $5.50 round trip. Adult passengers will pay 50 cents for one way and children under 12 years, 25 cents. These rates may be modified or increased as the commissioners see fit before granting the franchise and rates are always subject to the control of the Washington Department of Public Works at Olympia.
Cars at Tokeland Hotel, PCHS
Long ago, Oysterville resident Charlotte Jacobs told me that her grandfather Bert Andrews had brought the first car, a Winton, to the Peninsula on a barge from Raymond or South Bend. That was in 1911. I always assumed that Bert had hired a barge to bring the car across the bay – and maybe he did. That was early on and he was always on the cutting edge when it came to innovations.
And, though I would term the vessels in Steve’s photographs “barges” rather than ferries, the newspaper article uses the F-word throughout. I don’t know how the timeline fits with Sue’s information. I’m not a car expert, but I’m thinking that the photographs were taken in the mid- to late twenties which would make sense since there weren’t any roads to speak of in the area before that. (Come on, you car buffs. What years do these autos look like?)
Steve says he’s continuing the search and maybe more information will be forthcoming from other sources, as well. See what you started, Sue? This is what Community History is all about! I love it!
History mysteries…your readers love it too!
In the old days there were a number of small ferries across the Columbia River that were essentially a “barge and a tugboat” similar to what you have pictured. Typical of these were the Vernita Ferry and the Paterson Ferry. Before the Vernita bridge replaced the ferry in 1965, we would travel from Sunnyside to Wenatchee to visit Grandpa and Grandma Jeffords, crossing the Columbia on the Vernita Ferry. A memorable Columbia River crossing was on the Paterson Ferry in the summer of 1948 (I don’t remember it too well as it was just a few months before I was born!). That year the Columbia River had major flooding (including the destruction of Vanport). My folks were moving all of their possessions from Pullman (where Dad finished up his B.S. in Agricultural Engineering) to Sunnyside, where Dad had a new job with the Soil Conservation Service. The bridge across the Columbia was too dangerous to cross due to the high water, so all traffic was funneled to the Paterson Ferry. They had to wait hours and hours in line before they could finally cross.
Hi Cuzzin Ralph – Thanks, as always, for your great comments. I guess I should have made clearer in my blog that it was a follow-up to an earlier blog concerning a question about car ferries on Willapa Bay. Although there is lots of material about the small barges and ferries on the Columbia, and quite a bit about mail boats and passenger launches on the bay (to say nothing of lumber scows and oyster boats), I had never seen anything about a car ferry. Today’s blog is re-opening the dialogue due to more information that has arrived, triggered by that first blog.