page_title: Wide West
section_title: Engineering
hierarchical_section_title: Wide West / Engineering
caption_attribution_description: English: Listing in Portland, Oregon directory for Oregon Steam Navigation Company, circa 1875
context_page_description: Wide West was a steamboat that served in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. She had a reputation as a luxury boat of her day.
  Wide West was built in 1877 in Portland, Oregon, by the Oregon Steam Navigation Company. It was built entirely of wood. Wide West was a sternwheeler, 218 feet long and rated at 1200 tons. On the Columbia River, unlike the Mississippi and other rivers in the eastern part of the country, there were very few sidewheel steamboats. Wide West was placed on the run from Portland to the Cascades of the Columbia, which at that time, was the head of navigation. Passengers had to disembark and ride a short railway around the Cascades to board another steamboat to travel further upriver. Cargo similarly had to be unloaded and reloaded again.
  In 1888 Wide West was disassembled. The upper works and machinery were used to build another steamboat, the T. J. Potter. This was typical of the time, as the wooden-hulls would become waterlogged and worn, and it was easier to simply rebuild a new boat. The upper works and machinery were reused, as they were more durable and still had economic value after only ten years of operation.
context_section_description: Power for Wide West was supplied by two horizontal high-pressure steam engines built by Pusey, Jones & Co., of Wilmington, Delaware.  Drawings for the engines were prepared by John Gates (b.1839), chief engineer of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, and included an independent cut-off device, designed by Gates, which reduced wastage of steam in the cylinders which resulted in a “great economy of fuel.”  Each engine had a bore of 28 in (711.2 mm) and a stroke of 8 ft (2.44 m).
  They were exact duplicates of the engines installed in the R.R. Thompson, which were built by the firm of Harlan and Hollingsworth, also of Wilmington.  The engines generated 500 horsepower.
  Wide West was expected to run at 18 miles (29 km) per hour, on a route between the Cascades and Astoria, Oregon.  However, by October, 1877, the steamer had not been placed on the Astoria route, but was running solely between Portland and the Cascades, prompting criticism from the Daily Astorian of the decision.
  A single boiler, originally wood-fired, generated steam at 90 pounds pressure per square inch, although it seems that pressure of up to 125 pounds per inch was possible.  The boiler, built at Willamette Iron Works, of a type known as “Gates Sectional Boiler” was 7 feet in diameter and 30 feet long.  It had 336 tubes, each 2.5 inches in diameter.
  Fuel consumption was approximate one cord per hour, or, conservatively estimated, one cord for every 16 miles travelled.  This was less than one-half of what a Mississippi-type steamboat with comparable capacity would consume.
  The boiler was designed with a spark arrester which captured combusted material from the firebox, automatically hosed down the material with water, and discharged it into the river through a port in the hull.  This kept the upper decks clean from soot which would otherwise have been exhausted through the smokestack and reduced the amount of paint needed for the cabins.
  Water pressure for the washbasins in the cabin, and for the hydraulic steering gear was furnished by auxiliary steam-powered donkey engines.
caption: Advertisement for Wide West and other boats of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company.
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