Mychal Ostler is a lifelong Pacific Northwest maritime history enthusiast. Raised on the shores of the Columbia River and having worked several seasons as an engineer aboard the sternwheeler Columbia Gorge, Ostler is intimately familiar with paddlesteamer operations and lower Columbia River navigation. This is his second article for Sea History. Mr. Ostler can be reached at mychal. ostler@gmail.com. 22
oregon public library, ben maxwell collection
Sternwheeler Wide West
oregon public library, ben maxwell collection
Wide West interior
One of the OSN’s most celebrated and ornately decorated sternwheelers, Wide West, was built in Portland in 1877. Ainsworth spent a reported $114,000 to build the ship, whose engineering elements included watertight compartments with steam bailing pumps, a hydraulic steering gear, and running water for cabin toilets. After the great sternwheeler was dismantled in 1888, her crew quarters and pilothouse were installed atop the hurricane deck of the sidewheeler T J Potter, where it remained until 1900. Hotel Redondo, c. 1900
california historical society collection
design. The OSN’s crowning marine engineering achievements during the ’70s included the 246-foot Wide West and 236foot Mountain Queen, the largest and most luxurious sternwheelers ever built or operated in the Northwest. These two steamers connected with two railroads and another large sternwheeler to provide an approximately 300-mile through service that boasted the most comfortable, efficient, and modern accommodations of their time in the Northwest. In 1879, after two decades in the boardroom, Ainsworth sold the OSN, including its four railroads, multimilliondollar real estate portfolio, and fleet of 28 sternwheelers, to the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company for $5 million. The OSN’s assets were irreplaceable to the OR&N, as was Ainsworth himself, who retained a seat not only on the OR&N board of directors but also on that of the Northern Pacific Railway, where he advised the management of each company’s Northwest operations and occasionally provided emergency financial assistance from his own bank account. After selling the OSN, Ainsworth moved to California. Outside of Oakland, he built Roselawn, a fifteen-acre country estate, complete with a massive mansion for himself, a five-acre ornamental garden, and a guesthouse for his son. Not one to be satisfied with a retirement of leisure, Ainsworth kept busy and invested the rest of his fortune by venturing into banking and real estate development. His largest venture was the construction of the elegant 225-room Hotel Redondo in Redondo, California. Active, productive, and industrious until nearly the end, Ainsworth died at the age of 71, just a few months after founding the Central Bank of Oakland.
SEA HISTORY 179, SUMMER 2022
