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lltHEN MEN first sought to log UU the virein forests that once crowded th; bluffs of the Pacific Coast, neither roads nor railroads were available to carry the lumber to the markets of San Francisco and Sacramento. Out of this need for transportation evolved ships called steam schooners that were as unique to California as the Golden Gate.

Steam schooners were adaptations of the two-masted lumber schooners that carried the first sawmill machinery to the shores of Puget Sound and the Columbia River. The first loads of lumber carried from these new Pacific Northwest mills traveled to San Francisco by schooners, but between deepwater ports the little schooners were quickly replaced by larger vessels.

Schooners found their niche transporting Douglas fir from the southern Oregon coast and redwood from the coasts of Mendocino, Humboldt and Del Norte Counties in California. Due to their size, usually less than 200 feet in length, their shallow draw and maneuverability, lumber schooners were uniquely suited for snuggling into the rocky coves and crags that were called ports on the redwood coast.

The heyday of the lumber schooner began in 1852 when a San Francisco promoter, Harry Meiggs, loaded sawmill machinery on the ship Ontorio and sailed for a point called Big River (now Mendocino City). From there he began shipping sawn redwood to the San Francisco Bay Area. Within the decade dozens of other mills sprouted on the coast. By 1880 schooners were loading millions of feet of lumber, railroad ties and pilings from as many as 70 landings on the coast between Bodega Head and Humbolt Bay.

In 1880 Captain John W. Gage outfitted his conventional sailing schooner the Beda with steam engines, revolutionizing coastwise transportation. (Claims have also been made for the Laguna, the Newport, the Surprise and the Alex Duncan as the fi rst steam schooner.) No longer forced to lie idle awaiting favorable winds, steam-powered vessels began bringing lumber from mill to market in two days rather than in the indeterminant two to four days required by sailing vessels.

In appearance the conversion to steam changed the schooners little. A box-like cabin was built on the after deck and a slim stack rose from this cabin just forward of the main mast. Sail was retained on steam gchooners for as long as 30 years after the first conversion. Compound engines of approximately 100 horsepower drove a single propeller, driving the converted ships at speeds up to eight knots per hour. Later engines grew and the triple-expansion engine replaced the compound. Turbines never were used in the steam schooners.

For several years conversion orders swamped the Union Street offices of Charles G. White of San Francisco and Barnes and Tibbits of Alameda, two firms that specialized in outfitting ships with engines. They in turn flooded Fulton, Resdon, and Deacon lron Works, all of San Francisco, with orders for engines and boilers.

Story at a Glance

The long gone days of the steam schooners... how they carried their lumber cargoes along the west Coast. .. their picturesque ports and captains, who daily faced the hazards of fire and ship wreck.

In 1888 Captain Robert Dollar launched the small. 2 1 8-ton Newsboy, the first new lumber schooner completed with engines. The Newsboy hauled cedar logs, supplies, machinery and passengers between Eureka and San Francisco until she met her end in a collision with the steam schooner Wasp, April 1906, on Humboldt Bay.

Steam schooners launched with engines after 1 890 differed from the Newsboy and from the early-day conversion ships. They were normally 50 feet longer and had a superstructure above deck to house officers and passengers. Engines were still aft, but the after section of the vessels became rounded like steamers' while the forward sections remained concaved like schooners'.

The earliest steam schooners burnt coal. In 1893, however, the Kerchkoff-Cuzner Co. of Los Angeles converted their small steam schooner Pasadenafrom coal to oil burning.. At first her 190-horsepower engine received fuel by gravity feed, which proved inefficient, but the development of a pressure feed system made the innovation work.

Ship owners rushed to convert their ships from expensive coal to relatively inexpensive oil just as they had converted earlier ships from sail to steanl. By l91l less than a dozen coal-burning steam schooners were still operating.

SAI{ PE0R0, CA., Waterfront, t00t of 6th St., early |900s. Random width and length Douglas fir is being transferred from the deck of a steam schooner 0nt0 rail cars lor inland delivery. This area of the wharf was operated by Southern Pacific Co. and commonly called "Tie Wharf." Today the L.A. Maritime Museum is located 0n this spot. The steam schooner Nehalem is oictured in the back ground (head-on).

Following the 1906 San Francisco fire steam schooner construction skyrocketed as the entire lumber fleet operated to capacity carry- ing lumber to rebuild the city. Three dozen new steam schooners were launched on the coast from 1906 to 1909. Then shipbuilding lulled until the outbreak of World War I.

In 1920 Charles R. McCormick built the largest steam schooner on the coast, the Everett,232 feet Iong with two triple expansion engines of 1,400 horsepower each and a cargo capacity of 1.8 million board feet of lumber. Her high operating cost discouraged inritations.

After World War I steel vessels. which had slowly begun to infiltrate the domain of the wooden steam (Please turn to page 62)

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