File:Steamship SPOKANE in Glacier Bay, 1907 (TRANSPORT 626).jpg

The finest vessel yet to fly the houseflag of the Pacific Coast steamship co. appeared in 1902 with the completion at Union Iron Works, San Francisco, of the steamship SPOKANE, especially designed for the growing Alaska tourist excursion trade which had developed as a result of the international attention focused on that territory by the recent gold finds in the Klondike, at Cape Nome, Copper River and in other areas. The SPOKANE was a steel, single-screw vessel of 2,277 tons. She was fitted out to carry 171 first-class passengers in most comfortable accommodations. In addition, she had facilities for 100 in steerage, for even though she was designed primarily for the excursion trade, the heavy seasonal movement of cannery workers to the north made the transportation of steerage passengers a profitable segment of steamship operation on the North Pacific. (pg. 79) Notes from Gordon Newell, ed., The H.W. McCurdy Marine History of the Pacific Northwest (Seattle: Superior Publishing Co, 1966).

• Subjects (LCSH): Spokane (Steamboat); Steamboats--Alaska--Glacier Bay; Ice floes--Alaska--Glacier Bay