History in boats

Columbia M Museum 7

While the fishing industry commands a big spot in Northwest maritime history, the Columbia River Maritime Museum reaches into many aspects of maritime life to paint a comprehensive picture of life on the water. The boat above, a replica of the Spanish launch Buena Ventura, is an illustration of Spanish exploration of the Northwest coast. It was used in 1775 by the Spanish schooner Sonora as it surveyed and explored this region .

Beyond the Buena Ventura in this picture is a wall-mounted exhibit on tools and techniques used in traditional navigation. In addition to static displays video monitors describe and explain how the tools are used.

Columbia M Museum 8

This is the pilot house of the U.S.S. Knapp, a Navy destroyer built in 1943. It was decommissioned in 1957 and scheduled to be cut up and sold for scrap metal in the early 1970s. The owner of the company that was to dismantle the Knapp donated the entire bridge and pilot house to the Maritime Museum, no small feat.

Columbia M Museum 9

The entire bridge, shown here, weighs 13 tons. It was barged down the Columbia River, trucked ashore, and placed by a giant crane on the site of the museum. The museum building was then constructed around the bridge. Thus it’s not an overstatement to call this exhibit the centerpiece of the museum. It is in a room filled with exhibits depicting World War II and includes a period radio broadcasting Franklin Roosevelt’s historic Pearl Harbor speech.

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Message to City Daily Photo bloggers: The photo challenge for February 1st is If you had to leave forever the city from which you usually post, what would you miss most?
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6 thoughts on “History in boats”

  1. This reminds me a bit of the submarine on display at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry. I like these looks back to the past…

  2. I know there are several large exhibits in our war museum that had to be brought in while the place was under construction- there was no way they could have been brought in after the walls were finished.

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