page_title: Dispatch (sternwheeler)
section_title: Operations
hierarchical_section_title: Dispatch (sternwheeler) / Operations
caption_attribution_description: English: Steamboats Echo, Liberty, and Despatch at Coquille, Oregon. Undated in source, but 1910 appears to be about the date all three vessels were running at same time, per Steamboats of the Oregon Coast. Possibly prepared as a postcard.
context_page_description: Dispatch was a sternwheel steamboat that was operated on the Coquille River on the southern Oregon coast from 1903 to 1920. The name of this vessel is sometimes seen spelled Despatch. This sternwheeler should not be confused with an earlier and somewhat smaller sternwheeler, also named Dispatch, that was built at Bandon, Oregon, in 1890, for which the 1903 Dispatch was a replacement.
context_section_description: In 1903, Dispatch became one of a number of steamboats competing for freight and, especially, passenger business on the Coquille River.   Three boats, Dispatch, Liberty, and Reta were then leaving Bandon each morning. Favorite left Coquille City in the morning for Bandon and returned to Coquille City in the evening.  It was anticipated that Antelope, once fishing season ended, would be put on the Bandon-Coquille City run, making a total of five steamers daily operating on the route.  Reta carried the mail so as to allow Dispatch to make better time.
  As of March 17, 1904, Dispatch, under Captain Thomas White, departed Bandon every morning except Sunday at 7:30 a.m., bound for Coquille City.  Passengers could make connections at Coquille City at 10:30 a.m., either with the train or with the steamer Myrl.  Dispatch then left Coquille City at 12:30 p.m., returning to Bandon at 4:30 p.m.  This same schedule was still in effect on May 18, 1905.
  With the fall harvest in 1904, the owners of the steamers decided to take advantage of the need for fodder in the towns along the river.  On September 1, 1904, Dispatch, and the steamers Liberty and Favorite offered to deliver baled hay (grass and clover) to Bandon or Coquille City at a price of $11 per ton.
  In October 1908, Dispatch, under F.D. White, master, departed Bandon daily at 7:00 a.m. arrived at Coquille City at 9:30 a.m., then departed Coquille City at 1:00 p.m. and returned to Bandon at 3:30 p.m.  Dispatch advertised "all kinds of steamboat work done at reasonable prices."
  Large numbers of people were sometimes transported on the small steamers on the Coquille River.  For one baseball game at Bandon, Dispatch came downriver from Coquille with about 400 people aboard, and Telegraph arrived with 150 more.
  Vessels like Dispatch typically did not run regular schedules on Sundays.  They were however available for Sunday excursion trips, which were a popular means of recreation in those times.  In one example, on Sunday, June 23, 1907, Dispatch, along with two other steamers owned by the Coquille River Steamboat company, Liberty and Favorite, were chartered for an excursion to Bandon.  This excursion, which was billed as "the finest observation train excursion ever seen on the Pacific Coast", was organized by the Coos Bay, Roseburg and Eastern Railway, would be run on the rail line's tracks south from Marshfield to Coquille City, where transfer would be made to the steamers for the water portion of the excursion downriver to Bandon.
caption: Echo (left), Liberty (right), and Dispatch (center-right) at Coquille circa 1910
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "QuickTime 7.6", "Image DateTime": "2009:10:12 18:17:31", "Image HostComputer": "Mac OS X 10.5.6", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "294", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4136", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Centered"}