The Tug That Sank at Her Own Moorings
The Defender goes down in ten feet of water off the Pend Oreille landing while low water ties up log barges on the bars and fog strands a sixty-passenger steamer below Boundary Island.
The steam tug Defender, belonging to the Pend Oreille River Transportation Co., sank at her moorings last Friday. She is now lying partly on her side in about 10 feet of water. The top of her pilot house is about the only portion of the vessel in view. The boat has been out of commission most of the season, on account of the small number of mills operating down the river. She has not been cared for very carefully of late, and was saved from sinking a short time ago by Capt. Rockwell, of the Mayflower, who discovered that she was nearly waterlogged one day. The boat can be raised by placing a barge on either side and hauling her up until her deck is exposed and then pumping her out.
The Spokane brought up a barge of logs for the Fidelity Lumber Co. from Blueslide last week. The river is so low at the present time that the heavily loaded barges from the lower river are frequently tied up on the bars or on the sharp turns in the river, but the work of bringing up the logs will be continued, as the company desires to make a cleaning up of the logs that they have cut in that locality. From 35,000 to 40,000 feet of logs are brought upon each barge.
The steamer Ione was tied up below Boundary island on Monday night for some time. There were about 60 passengers aboard, and Capt. LeClerc did not feel justified in trying to make the docks, as the fog was the worst that has been experienced this year.
The Beck dredge was given a thorough test this week and found to work all right. It will be removed to the neighborhood of Boundary island as soon as a supply of fuel can be obtained, probably on Friday, and the work of deepening and straightening the channel of the river will be started.
“The river is so low at the present time that the heavily loaded barges from the lower river are frequently tied up on the bars or on the sharp turns in the river.”
Before the highway, the Pend Oreille was the road: logs by the tens of thousands of feet, hay, freight and passengers all moved by steamer and barge. Low water and fog still rule the river, though today the traffic that gets stranded is recreational — and it is drought and dam drawdown, not idle mills, that make the channel impassable.
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