Ferry service across the Columbia River via Puget Island (Wahkiakum County) begins on June 25, 1925.

  • By Kit Oldham
  • Posted 6/16/2025
  • HistoryLink.org Essay 8029

On June 25, 1925, Walter (1878-1932) and Lillie Rose (1879-1968) Coates and their sons begin regular car-ferry service across the lower Columbia River between Cathlamet and Puget Island, both in Wahkiakum County, and Westport, Oregon. For several months they run a single eight-car diesel ferry from Cathlamet to Puget Island and then around the island to Westport. Once a road is completed across Puget Island and a second ferry enters service, they will run one boat between Westport and the south side of the island, while the other runs between the island's north side and Cathlamet, with a car shuttling crew and foot passengers from one ferry to the other. Ferry service between Cathlamet and Puget Island will end in 1939 after a bridge connects them, but in 2025 a ferry will still run between Puget Island and Westport. The last ferry service on the lower Columbia, it has been operated since 1960 by Wahkiakum County, employing the 12-car ferry Wahkiakum for more than 50 years before replacing it in 2015 with the 23-car Oscar B.

Transportation by River

Puget Island is a 7.5-square-mile island about 40 miles above the mouth of the Columbia River. Separated from the Oregon side by the river's main channel, it is part of Wahkiakum County, one of Washington's smallest, which extends some 30 river miles along the broad tidal estuary of the lower Columbia, from about 10 miles above Puget Island to Grays Bay 20 miles downriver. Cathlamet, the county seat, is located directly across a small river channel from the island. Across the river on the Oregon side is the town of Westport. Immigrants, many from Scandinavia, who began settling the area in the late 1800s, diked much of the island's tidelands, creating fertile agricultural land where a farming community grew up.

Well into the twentieth century, water routes provided the primary, and often the only, means of transportation for residents of the lower Columbia River, as they had for thousands of years. A highway was completed in 1915 along the Oregon side from Portland to the river's mouth near Astoria. But even as automobile use increased, on the Washington side it was not until 1930 that a state highway connected Cathlamet to Longview upriver in Cowlitz County, with extensions downriver from Cathlamet coming later. Until then, not only Puget Island but Cathlamet and many other communities on the mainland remained accessible only by water. Steamboats and sailing schooners carried passengers and freight between Wahkiakum towns and river destinations like Astoria and Portland, while small fishing boats and skiffs provided local transport.

When automobiles appeared, they had to be loaded awkwardly onto steamboats not designed for the purpose or carried to their destination on open barges maneuvered by tugboats. Barge service between Cathlamet and Westport was operating by 1924, but the small barge could only carry one car at time. However, by the end of that year plans were in place for the crossing's first car ferries. Walter G. and Lillie Rose Coates and their son Ellis N. Coates (1902-1930), who had recently moved to Cathlamet from Tacoma, incorporated the Cathlamet Ferry Company to run car ferries between Cathlamet and Westport, with stops on Puget Island. They had two diesel-powered wooden ferry boats, each capable of carrying eight cars, built at the Mathews Boatyard in Portland. The first ferry completed was named the Cathlamet.

The Car Ferry Arrives

On June 25, 1925, the Cathlamet steamed down from Portland and began ferrying people and cars between Cathlamet, Puget Island, and Westport. For several months, the ferry ran from Cathlamet to Puget Island and then around the island's eastern end and across the channel to Westport. With Westport located on the highway connecting Portland and Astoria, this new service provided a dramatic change for automobile owners in Wahkiakum County. For the first time, they could travel easily by car to those metropolitan areas.

Later in the year, the second ferry, named Westport, was finished, and a 3.5-mile-long gravel road was completed across Puget Island from the ferry landing opposite Cathlamet to one across from Westport. From then on, the Cathlamet ran between its namesake town and the north side of Puget Island, while the Westport made the run from the island's south side to its namesake. Cars traveling between Cathlamet and Westport used the new gravel road to traverse the island from one ferry landing to the other. The Coates family bought a Buick touring car to carry the ferry crew and any foot passengers across the island. The Buick, which had room for only three passengers in addition to the crew of four, was replaced with a somewhat larger van, and later a Studebaker bus purchased from a Portland hotel.

Walter Coates and his sons Ellis and Melvin (1905-1965), who were all certified river pilots, operated the ferries for the seven years that the Coates family owned the service. As highway routes expanded during that time, Coates became concerned that they would cut into the ferry operation's business. In 1930, the state highway between Cathlamet and Longview opened, and a toll bridge at Longview provided a road crossing to the Oregon side and the highway to Portland. Two years later, when tolls on the Longview Bridge were reduced and the state highway was being extended downriver from Cathlamet to Megler, where there was a direct ferry crossing to Astoria, Coates decided to get out of the ferry business.

In April 1932, the Coates family turned the Cathlamet Ferry Company over to Arthur W. Houchen, including their permits and ferry docks. However, they sold their ferries to the Umpqua Navigation Company, which used them in other locations. At first, Houchen used tugs and barges to maintain ferry service between Cathlamet, Puget Island, and Westport. Eventually he acquired several car ferries that he operated until 1936.

That year Houchen sold the ferry business, and at least one of his ferries, to Elmer (originally Almar) (1906-1978) and Jessie Hepburn (1906-1989) Danielsen. The Danielsens purchased the ferry Tourist, which had been built in 1921 for the route between Astoria and Megler, for the run between Cathlamet and Puget Island. Among the ferry hands the Danielsens employed was their brother-in-law Oscar Bergseng (1902-1985), who was married to Elmer's sister Adine Lorine Danielsen Bergseng (1910-1996). At first he worked part-time while also working at the Westport Lumber Mill, but in the 1940s he quit the mill job and became a fulltime ferry pilot.

One Run Ends, the Other Continues

State and county officials had been making plans since at least 1930 for a highway bridge from Cathlamet to Puget Island, but the local funds available were not sufficient. A federal grant in 1937 made construction possible, and the Puget Island-Cathlamet Bridge opened in 1939. The bridge was later renamed in honor of Julia Butler Hansen (1907-1988) of Cathlamet, a longtime state legislator and then United States Representative.

With the bridge in place, the ferry between Cathlamet and the island was no longer needed, so the two-ferry operation that the Coates family inaugurated in 1925 came to an end. But the run between Puget Island and Westport continued, with the Danielsens moving the Tourist to that route. By the late 1940s, with the nearly-30-year-old Tourist needing replacement soon, and tolls on the Longview Bridge dropping, Elmer Danielsen wanted to sell the ferry operation, but Jessie Danielsen refused to sell the family business.

Instead, the Danielsens commissioned a new ferry, naming it Almar, which is the Norwegian spelling of Elmer and the name that Elmer Danielsen's Norwegian-born parents gave him at birth, although in adulthood he spelled it "Elmer." The all-metal ferry, which cost $43,700 and held 14 automobiles, went into service in 1949. The Danielsens operated the Almar on the Westport-Puget Island run for 10 years. In 1958 they attempted to sell the ferry, but the buyer defaulted and they continued running it.

The couple divorced in April 1959, with Jessie receiving the ferry operation. Ferry traffic was declining as two sawmills on the Oregon side of the run closed and she sought to sell the service but couldn't find a buyer. In November 1959 Jessie Danielsen ended service and sold the Almar to a buyer who used it on the run between Anacortes and Guemes Island (it was later taken to Alaska for use as a fish-receiving vessel).

Four the next five months, Puget Island was without ferry service. In April 1960, Darrel Boylan of Richland, who then operated two tug-and-barge ferry crossings farther up the Columbia -- between Maryhill, Klickitat County, and Biggs Junction, Oregon, and at Vernita on the Hanford Reach (both later the site of bridges across the river) -- began service between the island and Westport with a tug and a barge that could hold 12 automobiles. But the service was not profitable, and by that October Boylan looked to discontinue it. At the request of Wahkiakum County officials, he kept operating for another two weeks as they made arrangements to take over the service.

The County Takes Over

The county did so by leasing the tug and barge from Boylan and hiring Oscar Bergseng and his son George to operate them, which they did for the next two years. To improve service, the county commissioned a new steel ferry at a cost of $46,000. It had twin diesel engines providing 300 horsepower and could hold 12 cars and more than 30 passengers on its 75-by-29-foot deck.

Named after the county that owned it, the Wahkiakum entered service in May 1962. It made the one-and-a-half mile run between Puget Island and Westport up to 18 times a day for the next five decades, becoming a notable feature of the area. Oscar Bergseng captained the ferry for its first four years, Adine Bergseng was a deckhand for many years, and their sons George and Gary both also helped crew the ferry. In 1966 Oscar stepped down as captain but he continued to help manage the ferry operation for many years. Gary Bergseng, although only 18 years old, had just earned a pilot's license and succeeded his father as captain.

That same year the Astoria-Megler bridge opened at the mouth of the Columbia, eliminating the ferry crossing there. The Wahkiakum became the last ferry on the lower Columbia and the only ferry connecting Washington and Oregon. Several ferry crossings remained farther up the Columbia in Eastern Washington, with the Inchelium-Gifford and Keller ferries still operating in 2025.

In 1969 the State of Washington agreed to accept the Puget Island ferry as a part of State Route 409, the highway that runs from Cathlamet over the Julia Butler Hansen Bridge and across Puget Island to the ferry landing. Since that time the state has covered 60 to 80 percent of the operating costs, with the county paying most of the rest. Fares cover only a small portion of the ferry's expenses.

The Wahkiakum remained in service until 2015, when it was replaced by a new, considerably larger ferry. The Oscar B, named for Oscar Bergseng, is 115 feet long and 47 feet wide, holding 23 cars and 100 passengers. The ferry cost $5.7 million, and both ferry docks had to be rebuilt to accommodate its larger size, at an additional cost of $3 million. As of June 2025, when area residents celebrated the Wahkiakum-to-Westport ferry's 100th anniversary, the Oscar B provided daily service on the route with a minimum of 18 round trips per day between 5 a.m. and 10:15 p.m.


Sources:

Emily Townsend, "The Wahkiakum Ferry: A Legacy," January 3, 2019, ClatsopNews website accessed May 28, 2025 (https://clatsopnews.com/2019/01/03/wahkiakum-ferry-legacy/); Jim Aalberg, "Catching the Last Ferry," Cumtux, vol. 41, no. 1, Winter 2021, pp. 2-28; "Ferry," Wahkiakum County website accessed June 2, 2025 (https://www.co.wahkiakum.wa.us/252/Ferry); "Wahkiakum County Ferry," Wahkiakum Chamber of Commerce website accessed May 24, 2025 (https://wahkiakum.us/visitor-info/ferry-schedule/); "The Puget Island Ferry," Highways of Washington State website accessed May 19, 2025 (http://www.angelfire.com/wa2/hwysofwastate/ColRivBr02.html); "The Columbia River Highway," The Columbia County Historian Home Page website accessed May 23, 2025 (https://twrps.com/history/the-highway/); Mary Lynch, "Echoes," Wahkiakum County Eagle, July 28, 1994, p. 5; Robert J. Moser, "Puget Island -- Quiet Link Between Two States," The Seattle Times, October 18, 1964, Magazine, pp. 4-5; Jan Doward, "Crossing the Wide Columbia," Ibid., Sunday Pictorial, pp. 8-15; "Fisherman Dies on Grays River," Ibid., September 19, 1932, p. 11; "Puget Island Resident Elmer Danielsen Dies," Longview Daily News, October 19, 1978; Robert H. Ruby and John A. Brown, Ferryboats on the Columbia River, Including the Bridges and Dams (Seattle: Superior Pub. Co., 1974), 18, 21-23; Irene Martin, Beach of Heaven: A History of Wahkiakum County (Pullman: Washington State University Press, 1997), 98-104, 128-29; "History of the Ferry 'Wahkiakum'" (Washington State Department of Transportation), available at Internet Archive website accessed May 23, 2025 (https://web.archive.org/web/20170610203825mp_/http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/NR/rdonlyres/54BD0BBE-7525-4D6F-9DF5-3BD52FFABED1/0/HistoryofferryWahkiakum.pdf). Note: This entry replaces a previous entry on the same subject.


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