page_title: SS Columbia (1880)
section_title: Construction and outfitting
hierarchical_section_title: SS Columbia (1880) / History / Construction and outfitting
caption_attribution_description: English: A painting of the SS Columbia under full sail and steam in 1880. She was a brigantine rigged single screw steamship built for service between San Francisco and Portland and was also the first commercial use of Thomas Edison's light bulb. She sank on July 21, 1907 following a collision with the steam schooner San Pedro.
context_page_description: SS Columbia was a cargo and passenger steamship that was owned by the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company and later the San Francisco and Portland Steamship Company. Columbia was constructed in 1880 by the John Roach & Sons shipyard in Chester, Pennsylvania for the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company.
  Columbia was the first ship to carry a dynamo powering electric lights instead of oil lamps and the first commercial use of electric light bulbs outside of Thomas Edison's Menlo Park, New Jersey laboratory. Due to this, a detailed article and composite illustration of Columbia was featured in the May 1880 issue of Scientific American magazine.
  Columbia was lost on 21 July 1907 after a collision with the lumber schooner San Pedro off Shelter Cove, California, with the loss of 88 lives.
context_section_description: After attending Thomas Edison's New Year's Eve lighting demonstration in Menlo Park, New Jersey, Henry Villard, president of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company became enthusiastic of Edison's work. Villard subsequently ordered an Edison Lighting System to be installed on his company's new passenger steamer, Columbia. Although met with hesitation by Edison himself, the project moved forward, making the installation onboard Columbia Edison's first commercial order for the light bulb. Columbia would also be the first ship to utilize a dynamo. The success of Columbia's experimental dynamo system led to the system being retrofitted on to other vessels.
  Columbia herself was ordered in July 1879 as Hull No. 193 at the John Roach & Sons Delaware River Iron Ship Building and Engine Works in Chester, Pennsylvania originally by the Oregon Steamship Company. That same year, the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company had bought and merged the Oregon Steamship Company into its own operations. Construction of Columbia began in September 1879. Columbia was launched at 11:40 AM on February 24, 1880. Both the Bureau Veritas and American Shipmasters' Association oversaw her construction. Roach himself refused to install the incandescent light bulbs on board Columbia in fear of a possible fire breaking out. In May 1880, Columbia sailed to New York City, where Edison's personnel installed the new lighting systems.  The light bulbs were carried aboard in a shopping basket by Francis R. Upton, a chief assistant of Edison. The first lighting of the ship took place on May 2, 1880.
caption: The SS Columbia around 1880, under full sail in rough seas displaying all of her colors
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