Annie Faxon was a steamboat that was built by the Oregon Steam Navigation Company

Oregon Steam Navigation Company

The Oregon Steam Navigation Company was an American company incorporated in 1860 in Washington with partners J. S. Ruckle, Henry Olmstead, and J. O. Van Bergen...

. She is chiefly remembered now for the catastrophic boiler explosion

Boiler explosion

A boiler explosion is a catastrophic failure of a boiler. As seen today, boiler explosions are of two kinds. One kind is over-pressure in the pressure parts of the steam and water sides. The second kind is explosion in the furnace. Boiler explosions of pressure parts are particularly associated...

 in 1893 that destroyed her and killed eight people on board.

Design and Construction

Annie Faxon was built at 1877 at Celilo, Oregon and rebuilt 1887 at Texas Ferry, Washington. She was first owned by the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, and then by the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company when the shareholders of O.S.N. sold their stock at a huge profit.

Navigation on the Columbia River

At that time, and for the entire operational life of this vessel, the Columbia River was not continuously navigable from Portland at tidewater. Instead the river was divided into reaches known as the lower, middle, and upper Columbia, each one separated by a long stretch of essentially unnavigable rapids. The reaches were like giant steps, and once a steamboat was built on a step, it could, with some danger, descend to a lower step by running the rapids. However, in general no steamboat could proceed up a step, although in some cases
steamboats were dismantled and carried around the major rapids or smaller ones might be winched up by a line attached to the bank.

Operations of Annie Faxon

Annie Faxon ran on the top step, that is, the reach above Celilo Falls

Celilo Falls

Celilo Falls was a tribal fishing area on the Columbia River, just east of the Cascade Mountains, on what is today the border between the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington...

. She was one of the largest steamboats to operate on these route. Boats like Annie Faxon on the upper Columbia could navigate 141 miles (226.9 km) up the Snake River to Lewiston, Idaho

Lewiston, Idaho

Lewiston is a city in and also the county seat of Nez Perce County in the Pacific Northwest state of Idaho. It is the second-largest city in the northern Idaho region, behind Coeur d'Alene and ninth-largest in the state. Lewiston is the principal city of the Lewiston, ID - Clarkston, WA...

 and even beyond.

Destruction

On April 14, 1893 at 7:30 a.m., Annie Faxon was destroyed in a catastrophic boiler explosion. The boat was coming in for a landing with Captain Harry Baughman in command. Suddenly with no warning the boiler exploded and the upper works of the vessel were destroyed. Eight people were killed, including the bride of purser J.E. Tappen, who was blown into the river and drowned. The boat's pilot, Thomas McIntosh had been beheaded by flying debris and crewman William Kidd was blown to pieces. Captain Baughman, who had been standing next to pilot McIntosh, was blasted onto the shore, dazed and injured.

Cause of the explosion

The cause of the explosion was later said to be the failure of a safety valve (called a "fusible plug") to blow when the water level in the boiler fell too low. Just how this occurred was not quite certain. The vessel had been recently inspected, and while she was 16 years old a the time, she had been rebuilt in 1887 just six years before. The curious thing about this explosion was that it seemed to fit a pattern of explosions occurring not while racing but rather just after or before the vessel was coming in for a landing, as in the case of the Gazelle

Gazelle (sidewheeler 1854)

Gazelle was an early sidewheeler on the Willamette River in what is now the U.S. state of Oregon. She did not operate long, suffering a catastrophic boiler explosion less than a month after her trial voyage.-Design and construction:...

 and the Senator