From time to time, I’m going to start posting things from the collection. There is just no point in sitting on all these images if no one gets to see them. However, please don’t steal my photos. I’m more than happy to lend images to people for their various publications(and have done so many times in the past–just give me a credit, please.) It’s very discouraging to see some of my images on the internet with no attribution given, particularly ones I’ve spent hours colorizing.

With that, above we have a photo from 7 March 1927. The ferry Stockton* has just been launched. She would spend around fourteen years on San Francisco Bay before she’d come to Puget Sound with her other sisters in the Steel Electric Class and would be rechristened Klickitat. You can read all about her on her page.

*Please, people in the media STOP saying “the Cathlamet ferry” or “the Tillikum ferry” or, just this morning “Coastal Renaissance ferry.” There is no ferry to Cathlamet, (anymore) or ferry to Tillikum or ferry to Coastal Renaissance. That is what they’re saying, however, when the put the word ferry after the name. You’re turning a vessel into a place. Properly it is the other way around because you’re giving the name of the vessel. Think of it this way: you wouldn’t say “the Titanic steamship” unless you were talking about a really big steamship, and you wouldn’t be using the capital T. You’d say, in referring to the ship, “the steamship Titanic.” Same thing. For some reason lately in the media because it’s a ferry, it’s getting written the other way around and as a fan of most things maritime, it’s driving me bonkers. Another example–you’d write/say it “the battleship Missouri “, not “the Missouri battleship”–unless the battleship was built and came from Missouri. See, easy. Cranky English major will now slink back to his cave.

I’m a huge fan of Canadian Pacific ships, both their Pacific and Atlantic liners and their pocket liners for the Salish Sea as we now call it. One of my favorite all-time liners, in fact, is the Empress of Japan of 1929, later the Empress of Scotland and later still the Hanseatic.

However, what we see here is a rare photo of the Aegeaon, or, because that name likely doesn’t mean much to people other than die-hard Canadian Pacific fans, “what happened to the 1911 built Princess Alice after Canadian Pacific sold her.”

Princess Alice, along with her nearly identical sister, Princess Adelaide, (1910) ran the what later became known as the triangle route down to Seattle, if memory serves, before WWI. Princess Alice also ran cruises to Alaska.

Both sisters were retired in the late 1940’s and sold to the Typaldos Line in Greece in 1949 and were renamed Aegeaon and Angelika. They sailed for that company until 1965 and 1966, respectively, when they were finally scrapped.

This super sharp slide, which looks like it could have been taken yesterday, shows the pretty little pocket liner still looking sharp for her new owners in August 1959.

Long before the Kalakala arrived, Black Ball was embracing the new Art Deco look. It first starts showing up in their advertising about 1926 and was in full flourish by the time this one was produced in 1931.

Canadian Pacific, however, produced some of the most lovely Art Deco artwork in this era. This appears to be a stylized view of the Princess Charlotte, even though the passenger list comes from the Princess Alice on an Alaska cruise from 1 August 1936.

The Kitsap County Transportation Company even got in on the act with their schedules. KCTC was struggling with maintaining its independence at this point, and it would only last a few more years before being absorbed into the Puget Sound Navigation Company and the “White Collar Line” would disappear into the pages of history and their ferries would lose the white band on their stacks (hence the “white collar line” name) and sport the crimson and black of PSNC.

I don’t seriously collect stuff on the Mosquito Fleet because…in that way lies madness and bankruptcy because there are so flippin’ many of them! It wasn’t called the Mosquito Fleet for nothing!

I do have a fondness for the old Sightseer from the Grey Line, and this is probably my favorite slide of her. It is just too bad she couldn’t have been saved like the Virginia V. (She was moved to the Columbia RIver and later wrecked.)

Kingston looks a little different these days, although there is an unused boat in the tie-up slip right now–the retired and stripped out Hyak. The big difference is in this photo, the Klahanie, tied up at left, is perfectly serviceable and will be fired up for extra service on the weekends.

You can’t tell it much in black and white, but that is solid mahogany paneling. This photo is from at article about the new Black Ball ferry. It wasn’t new-new in that it hadn’t been built from the ground up. Starting a trend that would last most of its existence, Black Ball had taken an existing vessel and totally rebuilt it.

Thus, considerably rebuilt, lengthened, and extensively refurbished, including changing the the steam engines out for diesel, the rather austere and no frills ferry Whidby was transformed into the luxuriously appointed Rosario. (Yes, no “e.” The spelling of “Whidbey” wobbled over the years, being “Whidby”, “Whidbey” or, according to Wikipedia, even “Whitby.” You can still find maps with the alternate spellings. For the record, the fellow the Island was named for was Joseph Whidbey, “e” included.)

In addition to the Men’s Smoking Room, there was a Ladies Lounge, a comfortably appointed forward observation lounge equipped with a radio, a full service dining room and a promenade on the texas deck.

The Rosario was put on the run from Anacortes to Sidney, where here amenities were greatly appreciated on the long trip.

Unfortunately, it didn’t last long, thanks to an arsonist.