Steamer Gerome Sinks in Columbia River Rapids
A cargo of wheat is lost after an engine failure leads to a wreck near Pasco.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The Columbia river steamer, Gerome, en route from Wallula to Kennewick with a cargo of 500 sacks of wheat, foundered and sank in about five feet of water at the Homely rapids about nine miles below Pasco at 4:10 p. m., Saturday, Sept. 2, 1905. According to Captain Dallaher's official wreck report, the cause of the accident was the total failure of the engineer to obey signals from the pilot house. The boat was of seventy-four ton gross weight and is owned by Todd Cover of Tacoma, and is valued at $7,500, and her cargo is valued at $650.00. The management have not yet decided whether her hull will be raised or just the machinery removed. The cargo has been thrown overboard. John T. Cover has gone to Portland for a conference with Mr. Todd, and future action will then be decided upon. The Open River Association have agreed to bear a portion of the loss. Positive assurance is given that either the Gerome or another boat will be put on the river to fill the company's schedule at once. The accident is an especially disastrous one coming just at the opening of the wheat hauling season.
“The accident is an especially disastrous one coming just at the opening of the wheat hauling season.”
The Columbia River was once the primary highway for wheat and commerce, but the constant threat of rapids made navigation a dangerous gamble. Today, a series of locks and dams have tamed these waters, turning the once-treacherous rapids into a series of static pools that support industrial barge traffic rather than the smaller sternwheelers of the early 1900s.
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