page_title: R. R. Thompson (sternwheeler)
section_title: Transfer to the lower river
hierarchical_section_title: R. R. Thompson (sternwheeler) / Transfer to the lower river
caption_attribution_description: steamboat captain John McNulty. sometime before 1895
context_page_description: R. R. Thompson was a large sternwheel steamboat designed in the classic Columbia River style. She was named after Robert R. Thompson, one of the shareholders of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, the firm that built the vessel.
context_section_description: As railroads were extended along the banks of the Columbia River, the days of the steamboat as the dominant means of transportation gradually came to an end, particularly on the middle river, which required expensive and time-consuming portages around the two major rapids at Cascades and above The Dalles.
  The first boat to be taken off the river was the R.R. Thompson.  On June 3, 1882, Captain John McNulty took R.R. Thompson down through the Cascade Rapids to operate on the more lucrative lower Columbia and lower Willamette rivers.
  That day Captain McNulty with William Johnson, first officer, William Doran, engineer, and George Fuller, assistant, took R.R. Thompson out of The Dalles at 6:30 a.m., passed Klickitat Landing, ten miles below, in twenty-four minutes, White Salmon, about twenty-three miles, in fifty-one minutes, Hood River, twenty-five miles, in fifty-eight minutes, and reached the Cascades, forty-six miles, in two hours and one minute.
  R.R.Thompson remained at the top of the Cascades a short time and then swung into the stream and entered the Cascades under full stroke, making the run to Bonneville in six minutes and forty seconds, passing through the heart of the rapids at the rate of a mile a minute.
  The trip to Portland was accomplished in two hours and fifty minutes, and she steamed past Ash Street dock at 12:17 p.m.  Her actual running time was five hours.
  The passage of the Thompson through the six-mile long Cascades Rapids in 6 minutes 40 seconds was a record which was approached but never beaten.  The most famous later occasion was by Hassalo in her run on May 26, 1888.   On that occasion, R.R. Thompson, with Captain McNulty still in command, together with  Lurline transported 1,500 people to an equal number of others at the Cascades to witness Hassalo's run.
caption: Capt. John McNulty, who took R.R. Thompson through the Cascades of the Columbia
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