A Stern-Wheeler for the Pend d'Oreille: Newport Bets on the Metaline Trade
Seven thousand dollars subscribed, a hundred-foot boat drawing two feet of water, and a captain promising to be running ore to Newport by June 1.
"The project for the construction of a light draft steamer to haul freight into the Metaline and concentrates to Newport has received considerable impetus from certain shippers, and the boat will be in operation by June 1," said Capt. A. S. Lanneau at Spokane. Owing to the defection of other ore shippers at first counted on for freight patronage the project has been somewhat delayed, but it is now stated that $7,000 has been subscribed and that the remainder of an equal amount is virtually promised.
Capt. Lanneau further said: "I will have the boat running by June 1, and it will afford facilities of communication that the Metaline has never had. The boat will be about 100 feet long, carry a 250 horse power engine and a cargo of 80 tons. It will, of course, be a stern-wheeler, and will not draw over two feet of water, for the upper river during the dry season is quite shallow. I believe it will be practicable to make the round trip of 120 miles from Metaline to Newport and back in one day, but that is a detail to be worked out in actual operation."
Capt. Lanneau has for twenty years operated steamboats on the rivers and lakes of the northwest. He built the first steamer, the State of Idaho, that plied from Jennings to Fort Steele. He was also part owner of the two largest steamers ever launched on Flathead lake. He is president of the Metaline Navigation Company.
The boat, plans for which are now in preparation, will be constructed in sections at Portland, and boat carpenters will accompany the craft to Newport, where it will be put together.
“It will afford facilities of communication that the Metaline has never had.”
Before the highway, the only road to the Metaline country was the river, and Newport's future depended on being the place where the ore came out. The boat was to be built in pieces in Portland and bolted together on the Newport waterfront — a startup logistics plan with a two-foot draft. The Pend d'Oreille still carries no commercial freight, and the docks the Commercial Club wanted a sidewalk to are long gone.
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