_{The venerable Washington. Courtesy of the Capt. Raymond W. Hughes collection. Colorized.}

BUILT: 1908, Seattle, WA

PREVIOUS/LATER NAMES: a. Washington b. YHB-4

OFFICIAL NUMBER: 204997

L/B/D: 160 x 43 x 10 GROSS/NET TONS: 323/219

PROPULSION: steam, 600 HP 

NAME TRANSLATION: For the state/first president of the US

FINAL DISPOSITION: Still afloat (as a warehouse) at the foot of Ewing Street in Seattle in 1967.  Scrapped sometime after that.

HISTORY

Even less remembered is the old steam ferry Washington, which started life on Lake Washington as a passenger vessel in 1908.

In 1919, with the Lincoln and Leschi carrying most of the traffic across the Lake, the converted Washington was assigned to the Vashon-Fauntleroy route about 1923 after the Robert Bridges had been rebuilt as the Mount Vernon and assigned to the Anacortes-Sidney run.

Kitsap County Transportation Company took over the Fauntleroy-Vashon route in 1925, assigning the brand-new Kitsap to the route, which returned the Washington to Lake Washington and King County.

The vessel was used primarily for excursions from that point on.  The Washington could be found steaming down to Olympia, up and down Hood Canal, and all over Puget Sound.

With the bridge opening on Lake Washington, (1940) the ferry was sold to Neider and Marcus, Seattle junk dealers who removed her boilers and machinery.

During the war, the Washington became the YHB-4, a barracks ship for the navy. After being discharged from that duty, she ended her days on the Lake Washington Ship Canal at the foot of Ewing Street, where she remained as late as 1967.

What happened to her after that is not known, but at some point she has to have been scrapped.