The Steamer Anderson’s Long Life on the Sound
A legendary vessel finds new ownership in Seattle, signaling a shift in the regional transit market.
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.
Captain George D. Wrench of New York, owner of the steamer Klieta Anderson, sold that craft yesterday to the Washington Steamboat Company of this city. The terms were private, but it is understood the price agreed upon was in the neighborhood of $16,000. The Anderson is an old boat, but her boilers are new, having been put in a couple of years ago. Her machinery, though in use daily for years, is still in splendid condition. Her hull has been kept coppered, and her timbers are sound. This steamer, during her career on the Sound, has earned enough money to make half a dozen men rich. The Washington Company will probably, during the present winter, run the Anderson in connection with the Edith on their Puget Sound mail route. In the spring she will be overhauled, her wheels set down, her shaft lowered and her speed materially improved. She will then probably be put on the route between Seattle and the terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway.
“This steamer, during her career on the Sound, has earned enough money to make half a dozen men rich.”
Long before the modern Washington State Ferry system, Puget Sound was a chaotic, competitive patchwork of private steamboat lines. Today’s reliance on a single public operator is the result of decades of these exact kinds of cutthroat mergers and fleet consolidations.
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