Steamboats worked the river until 1911

It is difficult for me to imagine riverboats on the Columbia River, but we have featured such photos in this column in the past.

Seems such a mode of transportation should be reserved for the Mississippi River, but no, apparently they were used for decades to ship crops and people into the 1900s.

Read on.

The Pioneer Edition

From the Adams County Pioneer Edition, published by The Ritzville Journal-Times in 1949, with permission of Publisher Dee Ruser and supplied by Larry Lenz.

Othello: 42 years young

We backtrack a bit before we continue with the history of Othello:

"Early Cow Creek settlers sometimes passed north of present-day Othello on the Lind-Hutchinson Road, en route to the Columbia River and The Dalles to trade.

"The road connected with other early trails at Lind, crossed to Hutchinson Lake and Crab Creek, passing only four miles north of where Othello now stands.

"From there the trail cut through the saddle in the Saddle Mountains to White Bluffs, where early traders could catch a steamboat for The Dalles and other down river points.

"Parts of this early trail are still visible in the Othello country and gates where the land is fenced keep it open, if untravelled, even today.

"Steamboats continued to climb the river to White Bluffs as late as 1911.

"However, the principal early trading point for the stockmen in the panhandle region was Connell, stopping place on the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Co. line.

"Cowhands still rode the range and the ranchers still flourished when the first homesteaders made their way westward to the less desirable land of the Othello region.

"Most of the land in the rest of Adams County was already taken by that time and they sought new frontiers.

A.O. Lee one early settler in vicinity

"A.O. Lee, who took a plot near the old Bruce Postoffice in 1901, was one of the earliest of the homesteaders in that region.

"To measure his land, Lee tied a handkerchief to his buggy wheel and counted the revolutions to mark off the distance.

"The A.A. Littles homesteaded within about five miles of present day Othello in 1903. The Tom Rosevear homestead at that time was even closer to today's townsite.

"The original Othello Postoffice was almost five miles from the present town."

More about Othello's history next week.