Nez Perce Chief (sternwheeler)
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{{Infobox ship image |Ship image=Nez Perce Chief strikes rock (1868 news item.jpg |Ship caption=News item on Nez Perce Chief from the Walla Walla Statesman, December 25, 1868 }} {{Infobox ship career |Hide header= |Ship name= Nez Perce Chief |Ship owner=Oregon Steam Navigation CompanyAffleck, Edward L., A Century of Paddlewheelers in the Pacific Northwest, the Yukon, and Alaska, at 28, Alexander Nicholls Press, Vancouver, BC 2000 {{ISBN|0-920034-08-X}} |Ship operator= |Ship registry= |Ship route= |Ship ordered= |Ship builder= |Ship original cost= |Ship yard number= |Ship way number= |Ship laid down= |Ship launched= |Ship built=1863, at Celilo, Oregon) |Ship christened= |Ship acquired= |Ship maiden voyage= |Ship in service=1863 (built at Celilo, Oregon) |Ship identification=US registry #18399 |Ship fate=Dismantled |Ship notes= }} {{Infobox ship characteristics |Hide header= |Header caption= |Ship type=inland shallow-draft passenger/freighter, all wooden construction |Ship displacement= |Ship length={{convert|126|ft|m|0|abbr=on}} |Ship beam={{convert|25|ft|m|0|abbr=on}} |Ship height= |Ship draught= |Ship draft= |Ship depth={{convert|5.0|ft|m|0|abbr=on}} depth of hold |Ship decks= |Ship deck clearance= |Ship ramps= |Ship ice class= |Ship sail plan= |Ship power=steam, high-pressure twin engines, horizontally mounted 16" bore by 66", stroke, 17 horsepower nominal |Ship propulsion=sternwheel |Ship speed= |Ship capacity= |Ship crew= |Ship notes= }} |
Nez Perce Chief was a steamboat that operated on the upper Columbia River, in Washington, U.S., specifically the stretch of the river that began above the Celilo Falls. Her engines came from the Carrie Ladd, an important earlier sternwheeler. Nez Perce Chief also ran up the Snake River to Lewiston, Idaho, a distance of 141 miles from the mouth of the Snake River near Wallula, Wash. Terr.Mills, Randall V., Sternwheelers up Columbia -- A Century of Steamboating in the Oregon Country, at 43, 83, and 205, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE (1977 reprint of 1947 ed.) {{ISBN|0-8032-5874-7}}
Operations in gold rush
During the 1860s there was a gold rush in Idaho, and Nez Perce Chief and other steamboats of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company were key links in the transportation of miners and equipment upriver to the gold fields, and in transporting gold mined from the fields out. On one trip downriver at the height of the gold rush Nez Perce Chief carried $382,000 worth of gold dust and bars locked in the captain's safe.Timmen, Fritz, Blow for the Landing -- A Hundred Years of Steam Navigation on the Waters of the West, Caxton Printers, Caldwell, ID 1973 {{ISBN|0-87004-221-1}}
Transfer to other parts of the Columbia River
In 1870, Nez Perce Chief was brought down through Celilo Falls to The Dalles, where she operated on the middle river, that is, the stretch between The Dalles and the rapids downriver known as the Cascades of the Columbia, that began near where the modern town of Cascade Locks is located. On July 6, 1871, with Capt. John C. Ainsworth in personal command, she was brought down through the Cascades to the lower Columbia River.Wright, E.W., ed., Lewis and Dryden Marine History of the Northwest, at 197, Lewis and Dryden Publishers, Portland, OR 1895
Notes
{{reflist}}
{{Columbia River Steamboats}}
{{Oregon Steam Navigation Company}}
Category:Steamboats of Washington (state)
Category:Steamboats of the Columbia River
Category:Steamboats of the Snake River
Category:Oregon Steam Navigation Company
Category:Ships built in Oregon
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