Welcome to
the Mosquito Fleet $4: Greyhound cache.
The Greyhound was an express passenger
steamer which operated in 1890s to about 1915 on Puget Sound in
Washington, United States. This vessel, commonly known as the
Hound, the Pup or the Dog, was of unusual design, having small
upper works, but an enormous sternwheel. Unlike many sternwheelers,
she was not intended for a dual role as passenger and freighter,
but was purpose-built to carry mostly passengers on express
runs.
Greyhound was built at Portland, Oregon by Capt. Claud Troup
(1865-1896) in association with Frank W. Goodhue and others.
Greyhound was designed by Claude Troup's brother, James W. Troup,
one of the most famous of the steamboat captains. She was long and
narrow, and considered by some to be too flimsily built, which
turned out to be quite wrong, as the Hound as she was called,
proved to be a money-making fast moving boat. The Greyhound was
139.3 feet (42.5 m) long, 18.5 feet (5.6 m) on the beam 6.3 feet
(1.9 m) depth. Twin steam engines of 14.5" bore and 72" stroke
drove her enormous sternwheel. Mechanical data included: indicated
horsepower 400; single boiler, steel firebox built by Willamette
Iron Works, Portland, Oregon. Total grate surface 12 square feet
(1.1 m2), total heating surface 3,200 square feet (300 m2): fuel
consumption: 3/4 of one cord of fir wood
Shortly after completion Greyhound was taken round to the Sound
in September by Captain Lewis. She was built almost exclusively for
passenger traffic and showed remarkable speed. Once on Puget Sound
Greyhound raced against and beat all the crack boats on the Tacoma
and Seattle route. Greyhound started express passenger service
between Seattle and Tacoma on September 7, 1990, with Capt. Howard
Bullene in command and Claude Troup acting as chief engineer. On
the very first trip, Greyhound raced and beat the Fleetwood. Claud
Troup, captain of Greyhound
Shortly after Greyhound reached Puget Sound, Captain U.B. Scott
brought the fast propeller steamer Flyer up from Portland where she
too had been built, and put her on the same Tacoma-Seattle run in
competition with Greyhound. In a typical anti-competitive
transaction of the time, Capt. Scott offered the owners of
Greyhound a subsidy if they would take her off the route. Troup
agreed, and in November, 1891 he sold her to the Seattle &
Tacoma Navigation Company, of which he was president. From then
until 1903 she was operated on the Everett and Seattle route,
making three round trips a day. Captain Troup handled the boat
himself most of the time.
Greyhound, "all wheel and whistle" mounted both a greyhound
statue on the roof of her pilot house and a broom on her masthead,
showing that she'd swept the sea of her her competition. One day
she raced against the magnificent Bailey Gatzert, which thereafter
mounted both the dog and the broom.
In 1903, Greyhound was replaced on the Everett route by
Telegraph, then a new sternwheeler, and sold to a firm which placed
her on the route between Olympia and Tacoma, where she ran against
the old Willamette River sternwheeler Multnomah and also Capital
City, another sternwheeler Following a rate war, Greyhound's new
owners bought out both Multnomah and Capital City, forming the
Olympia-Tacoma Navigation Company.
In 1911 the new propeller steamer Nisqually was built at
Quartermaster Harbor and acquired by the Olympia Tacoma Navigation
Co. to replace Greyhound, which was then relegated to relief boat
service. By 1924, Greyhound had been out of service for many years,
and all that remained was her hull. She was still in good enough
shape to warrant hauling her out in Tacoma in 1924, for repair,
caulking and painting. Just what happened to her hull is not clear,
probably it was just left to rot on a beach or a mud bank like so
many others had been.
The cache.
Congratulations to svbto on FTF!
This is one of six caches hidden to complete
Mosquito Fleet series. You can find one or all of
them.
Most of the way to the cache is on logging roads or dirt paths.
The last 20-100 feet are off trail. There are some moderate
elevation changes. The forest floor can be mushy and soft. There is
no serious bush wacking needed. Expect poor GPS reception under the
tree cover, the caches are not cleverly hidden but are camo painted
and not visible from the path. It has been rumored that giant
mutant banana slugs live in the this area. An attack by one of
these creatures is a very slimy affair. Fortunately a brisk walk
will allow you to escape.
A paper map of the trails can be found
here
or an electronic one for your garmin
here.