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The railroad and steamboats were instrumental in making Wenatchee the city that it is today. Likely one of the most colorful historical figures in Wenatchee at the time was Captain Alexander Griggs.
In his early teen years, around 1850, Alexander Griggs became a cabin boy on steam boats on the Mississippi river. When he began piloting boats, he was so small that he had to stand on a box to manage the wheel. He became a captain of his first boat at 19 years of age. Alexander was friends with Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), a fellow steamboat captain. Another friend was James Hill, who he eventually went into business with and formed the Hill, Griggs & Co. Transportation & Navigation Company in North Dakota, running a small fleet of steamboats on the Red River. While there, Alexander formed the town of Grand Forks, North Dakota.
Alexander married his wife Ettie Strong, in 1865. She was an accomplished singer and performed in musical theater. I have to share this romantic quote about their meeting: "The Mississippi river has been the inspiration of much romance and song, but none more romantic than the story of the young girl, who on a summer’s day, long ago, sang and swung above the banks of the Mississippi, and while she sang she attracted the attention of a tall dark captain of a passing steamboat who mentally vowed he would return and meet and marry the seventeen year old singer. He carried out his intentions only a few months later, and Ettie Ione Strong became the bride of Captain Alexander Griggs." They had eight children together.
When James Hill decided to extend his railroad to the PNW, he envisioned the tiny town of Wenatchee to be a commercial hub on his Great Northern Railway line. Steamboats would be a key help until all the railroad lines were completed. James convinced Alexander to move to the Wenatchee area in 1892 (Alexander settled in Brewster before later moving to Wenatchee) to take up the steamboat business. The first boat he captained was the Thomas L. Nixon. Before the train bridge across the Columbia in Rock Island was built, the train tracks went up to the river on the south side, and then continued on the north side. There were locomotives kept on each bank, and the large sternwheeler was used to transport up to six train cars at a time across the river.
Alexander acquired more sternwheelers, and built more of his own, and started the Columbia and Okanogan Steamboat Company. He had a landing site at the bottom of Chehalis St., and a steamboat yard at the bottom of Fifth St., where you are now. Both sites had a rail spur that went down to the water to access cargo.
The sternwheelers were important for carrying passengers, products like wheat and apples, and other cargo. A track was built to Orondo in 1909, and most of the sternwheeler fleet was lost in a fire here at the Fifth st. yard in 1915, which essentially ended the local sternwheeler era. Captain Griggs died in 1903 from a stroke. A well-loved man, his funeral was attended by friends from all over the country. It was said to have been the largest attended funeral of the time.
Virtual Rewards 4.0 - 2024-2025
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between January 17, 2024 and January 17, 2025. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards 4.0 on the Geocaching Blog.