Ruth (sternwheeler 1895)

Ruth moored at Salem, Oregon, during flood, sometime between 1895 and 1898, with smaller sternwheeler Gypsy alongside.
History
Name:	Ruth
Route:	Willamette River
Launched:	1895
Out of service:	1920
Identification:	US #111103
General characteristics
Class and type:	riverine steamboat, passenger/freighter
Tonnage:	515 gross / 388 registered
Length:	156.4 ft (47.67 m)
Beam:	34 ft (10.36 m)
Depth:	4.6 ft (1.40 m)
Installed power:	Twin single-cylinder horizontally mounted steam engines, 14" bore by 54" stroke, 13 NHP
Propulsion:	sternwheeler

The steamboat Ruth operated from 1895 to 1917 on the Willamette River in the U.S. state of Oregon.Ruth played an important role in the transport of goods and agricultural products in Oregon, and was one of the fastest steamboats ever to operate on the upper Willamette. This vessel should not be confused with the sternwheeler Ruth built at Libby, Montana in 1896.

Farmers would grow wheat in the Willamette Valley, then bring it by wagon to river ports where it would be bagged and loaded onto steamboats bound downriver to Portland. One of the key centers to the wheat trade was the now-abandoned town of Lincoln, Oregon, in Polk County. Originally known as Doak's Ferry, Lincoln was about 6 miles (9.7 km) south of Salem, Oregon. Lincoln, was once the most important wheat port on the Willamette, as historian Corning describes:

Farmers from a wide area hauled their grain to Lincoln: and at the height of its prosperity, when river shipping was at its best, the town had five large warehouses, a grist mill, saw mill, beehive factory, blacksmith shop, tin shop, shoe and harness shop, store, lodge hall, church, school, and several dwellings, as well as the ferry that had operated since the early forties. Essentially a place of commerce, Lincoln one year shipped 350,000 bushels of wheat from its warehouses -- a record never equalled by any shipping point in the Willamette Valley except Portland.

By the 1890s, rail construction in the Willamette Valley had caused a sharp decline in steamboat traffic, as more and more freight was shipped by rail rather than water. Lincoln remained an exception, and well into the 1890s three steamboats a day called at the town. The vessels would leave Portland in the morning, pass through the Willamette Locks, and arrive at Lincoln at about 3:00 p.m.Ruth, when newly launched, was able to beat this time, and under Captain Miles Bell, set what may have been a record time for the Lincoln run, as historian Corning describes:

Captain John Sprong, operator of the ferry, told of hearing a boat coming up the river while he was at lunch. Believing that his watch had failed him, he rushed out onto the bank, where the Ruth was just drawing in, and asked the crew for the time of day. Captain Bell answered: "12:25, Johnny, and don't forget that!" The standing record had been surpassed by more than two hours.