Starting in 1869, the sternwheeler Onward began making a regular weekly run from Colfax Landing to Emerick’s Landing, just south of present-day Cornelius. In particularly rainy seasons, the boat might push as far upriver as Forest Grove and Centerville on Dairy Creek. Throughout the shipping season, from the time of the fall rains until the river was too shallow to navigate in the late summer, the boat left Colfax Thursday morning, and started back from Ernerick’s Landing at 6 a.m. on Monday.
Considering the extreme crookedness of the Tualatin River, a great cleal of travel was required to cover relatively few miles of distance. Some of the most spectacular bends of the river had names such as Jackson’s Horse Shoe, Goose Egg and Grecian Bend. Legend has it that passengers could get off the ship at the beginning of a bend, stroll slowly across the intervening pastureland, picking blackberries, and rejoin the boat at the next bend.
The difficulty of keeping the Tualatin River navigable (i.e. free of tree snags) and the introduction of railroads into the Tualatin Valley in the late 1880s ultimately ended the use of steamboats on the Tualatin River. Credit: Preserving Forest Grove Newsletter.
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