Willapa (steamship)

General Miles at dock in Ilwaco, some time between 1882 and 1889.
History
Name:	General Miles, later Willapa, Bellingham, and Norco
Owner:	Ilwaco Rwy & Nav. Co.; Portland Coast & Steamship Co.; Island Trans. Co.; Alaska Steamship Co.; Canadian-Pacific Nav. Co.; Bellingham Bay Trans. Co.; Inland Nav. Co.; Thompson Steamship Co.; Puget Sound Nav. Co.; Straits Steamship Co.; Northland Trans. Co.
Route:	Columbia River, Grays Harbor, Coos Bay, Tillamook Bay, San Juan Islands, Puget Sound, Vancouver Island, Inside Passage, Strait of Juan de Fuca.
Launched:	June 15, 1882
In service:	1882
Out of service:	1950
Identification:	General Miles: US registry #85370;Bellingham: #81313, flag signal letters KDJN.
Fate:	Scrapped and deliberately burned
General characteristics
Type:	coastal vessel
Tonnage:	as built: gross: 127;1st rebuild: 333 gross, 249 regist.
Length:	As built: 100 ft (30.48 m); rebuilt: 136 ft (41.45 m), later 140 ft (42.67 m)
Beam:	22 ft (6.71 m)
Depth:	10.5 ft (3.20 m) depth of hold
Decks:	two (2)
Installed power:	steam engine; as of 1891 reported as compound, cylinder bores (high pressure) 16 in (40.6 cm) and (low pressure) 32 in (81.3 cm); stroke 32 in (81.3 cm); Unpowered from 1919 to 1922, when a 200 horsepower (150 kW) Fairbanks-Morse semi-diesel engine was installed.
Propulsion:	propeller
Sail plan:	Schooner, 1879-1882; sailing barge (unknown rig) 1919-1922.
Capacity:	As built: 125 passengers; 150 tons freight.

General Miles was a steamship constructed in 1882 which served in various coastal areas of the states of Oregon and Washington, as well as British Columbia and the territory of Alaska. It was apparently named after US General Nelson A. Miles.

Originally a sailing schooner built in 1879, the General Miles was extensively reconstructed in 1890 and renamed Willapa. In 1903 the name was changed again to Bellingham. After a conversion to diesel power in 1922, the vessel was renamed Norco. The vessel is notable for, among other things, for having been first a sailing vessel from 1879 to 1882, a steamship from 1882 to 1918, a sailing barge from 1919 to 1922, and a motor vessel (diesel-powered) from 1922 to 1950.

General Miles was built in 1882 for the Ilwaco Steam Navigation Company. The vessel was a rebuilt sailing schooner which had been originally built in 1879.

The ISN had been organized in 1875 by Lewis A. Loomis, Jacob Kamm and two others, for the purpose of developing transportation to, from, and on the Long Beach Peninsula, located on the north side of the mouth of the Columbia River.

The company's first vessel was the General Canby, a 110 ft (33.53 m) steam tug built in 1875 at South Bend, Washington. ISN organized steamboat routes both on Willapa Bay, on the east side of the Long Beach Peninsula, and also on the Columbia River, on the south side of the peninsula.

By the early 1880s, demand on the Columbia river route, which ran from Astoria, Oregon to Ilwaco, Washington, was increasing beyond the General Canby's legal passenger capacity, which was 75 in summer and 40 in winter.

For this reason, ISN had a new steamer, the General Miles, constructed in Portland, Oregon. Completed in 1882, General Miles was a near sister ship to the General Canby. The General Miles was capable of multiple uses, being equipped with towing bits for tugboat work as well as being designed to accommodate 125 passengers and handle 150 tons of freight.