Sagebrush Sailors

A. Only mystery of. My life time. Just drives you crazy. It was May 23rd 1948 the tug Robert Gray was heading up river from Portland. Two of our young employees kept on going to Canada bringing the boat back to The Dalles Oregon. The sun was out. The tug passed through Bonneville. The Columbia was 17 feet above flood stage. Called an on the on the radio about 30 minutes from that out of a routine call

all normal. Last I heard of. The Robert Gray sank and was never found. The boat belonged to Captain slim Lapa lotto. It was one of many boats he and his competitor Lou Russell lost to the rapids of the Columbia one of the toughest rivers in the world to navigate these men pioneered commercial transportation on the upper Columbia and opened one of the nation's most isolated regions to the markets of the world. How would you like to have. 10 billion dollars. That's with your phone. Or. You get guys down that are sleeping in there but. You're responsible for their lives. Well it's your own. Lot of responsibility. Because we're doing it when it was right. We're going to. Bring our.

Best weapon. At a drive to accomplish something that you feel you can do and everybody else 100 percent are exactly confident that you can do it. It took people like us the penny ways wouldn't make it in that business in the early 30s the Columbia Basin had the potential to supply fully one third of all the grain exported from the United States. If a way could be found to bring the grain to market. Jim Hill managed the Pendleton grain growers cooperative. The farmers and I had so much trouble over the years fighting the railroads about rates and so forth that just anything that even offered a possible solution that they were all for it is like manna from heaven for an area the size of Texas there were no ports few roads and no reliable rail service. The river route began in the Snake River at Lewiston Idaho and met the Columbia River near Pasco Washington to reach the calmer water below the Dalles Oregon. A captain had to

push a tug and barge almost as long as a football field threw nearly 100 Rapids. But at the end of the run was pure profit. The potential to make millions. There is only one thing I've ever been able to do in my life that I can say I've done good or two things I can always run a boat very good and I can always fly an airplane good not a nose or just like natural things from me. After many wrecks and lost loads steering wheelers had stopped running the upper Columbia was too dangerous. Slim left a lot of believe that high powered tugs. Designed for fast water to do the job despite what everyone was telling competitors and the railroads and everybody thought hell leave him alone no elements will get him and he's the type of person if someone tells him he can't do it. Then he'll spend the rest of his life trying to do it and I think that's a lot of my friends in the mid 30s the farmers took a chance and lop a lot o.

But when the barge got stuck in the rocks of Salerno falls he lost the load and with it his entire investment I had committed myself for several millions of dollars and I quit. All the sudden your earning power is cut off entirely. You got five cents in your pocket and you start wondering well why do I go from here. He ask his creditors to stick with him. The thing that brought us out of that I was able to go to all of all the people that I would money to and say if you'll just give me a little time I work out of this. I don't think I could do that today. I started off my first book cost me $65 my first BARGE cost me to two hundred fifty. During construction of the Bonneville Dam. Lee Russell tested the water with his own diesel tub. His boat and barge designs are even by today's stand. And help make commercial navigation of the upper Columbia possible.

You don't realize until you stop and look back and realize that you are part of history you are part of development. Well in a great waterway much further inland then a fresh. Agricultural product in Washington and Oregon and I don't know. President Roosevelt came to Oregon in 1937 to dedicate Bonneville the first major dam on the Columbia River. But just like the dam long stretches of the upper Columbia remain wild. Sam McKinney is the coordinator of the Columbia River Heritage Program at the Oregon Historical Society. At 15 he was a deck hand on the George E. Burton the last stern wheeler to run the Columbia current downhill rocks on the bottom the river when blowing up ice and snow.

You have the dimension of the up the Columbia River. Now your job is to get a tug boat to this thing all seasons of The Year night and day keep on going deliver the goods. It's a tough job. There were no charts no range markers no radar just six men and a tugboat. There are so many places that it was really tight. I mean you had to be right on top of it. If you are in big trouble. Each set of rapids had its own challenges. Captains had to know them like a driver knows the twists and turns of a steep mountain road. Only a few of the men who steered boats through these waters are alive today. Captains Walt Smith and Daryl McBride remember the river as it used to be. Yeah you bet it was a troll. Who's done something at that at that time was maybe. Out of the two companies that were walking up at that time you're probably talking about 20 people at the most. Look at that. To do this.

You know. Here I want to. Maybe it was the same kind of feeling when a. Really good diver makes a good dive and he gets out of the pool he looks over there and has nine chance for a tug and barge the John de Rapids was one of the trickiest. The John Day river entered the Columbia here pushing the current at 35 miles an hour. Rocks threatened on both sides. What took an hour and a half going up would take three to four minutes going down. I think probably in the Telegraph as it was the worst for the reason that it was along at Umatilla Rapids vast current water so shallow you could stand up in. And below rocks. Tough. On board a captain cranking the power to maximum and more. There are some people that. Would sway some people who would shake a little bit. Some people have a drink more coffee some people drink or smoke a lot more cigarette. If if it wasn't said in so many words it was understood that the only way to know why the

rapids up there in those days. Either got over or you blew an engine up. There's only one way to do it I was right way and the other way it was disaster. So I don't fall. For Native Americans so while it was a trading center the best place on the river to catch salmon trolley cars would ferry man out to the prime fishing spots above the floe. Towboat man used a canal to go around the eight foot drop. In April 1948 rural red and Micky Martin were on. Ward one of Russell's barges several miles up river that a barge tied up at the mouth of the chute and these guys were on it when I loosened it came down around the corner here with my saliva park where it exists today. It went out it was going to go over the falls. One of Brad Miller the one the fisherman.

Trolley lines and tried to walk across the lawn with his hand on that and the other one jumped in tried to swim to shore and they both drowned if that it stayed on the bars they would have had no problem at all in his shoes or her snow on the barge. When I picked it up here and began you know locks up here. This was the only place in the world where Barger operated and rap was like we had and it was so bad that we never hired anybody that ever been on a boat before because if we did the first time that boat got close enough the beach they'd jump off too young to be scared. Mark Nichols was 17 when he started as a deck hand. And it might be whether Hughes gives back and it pays any money but

I think that's probably because young people are fearless. It took seven years for a decade and to make kept a. Tough apprenticeship. If a three ton engine failed mid trip the crew would have to pull ashore and fix it if it tugged at rocks. Whoever was piloting forfeited his own mattress to plug the hole. The crew would be gone from home for weeks at a time. Joseph left home at 17 to work on the boats. I've neglected being at school function when like you have neglected being at a lot of things that I should have been. We had trips planned to wrestle come say would you work five days over. Sure. When you spend eight to 10 hours a day earning a living and you don't enjoy what you're doing you're damn fool. I've loved my work.

It's the Umatilla I worked on that boat. That's the Umatilla point at the visitors center at Bonneville Dam aloo Russell explains to his wife Sandra how he started on the remix and I've been working summers on his father's steam boats. So how old were you when you were born. Well I was 13 but that he's somebody that knows what he wants knows how to get it and doesn't stop until he got it. And I found that I've been able to handle both as well as anybody I've known. I've had a natural ability to do that. At 36 he was running the company determined to make it the best. I made my mind up early in the game. After battling with leaky tugs and leaky barges I was going to have the finest equipment with the finest men running I'm your boss. What did you call him. Oh Lou he was one of the one of the guys Dechen didn't call him slim.

Enough The captains did it. It was kept a lot of Jimmy and I you know I mean the president grow up I would say Hi George. It works in the right place. So I'm off the lot who has chronicled his life in 54 scrapbooks of newspaper clippings and another 70 of photographs. My mother came over from Finland as a 17 year old girl all by herself. My dad was killed in a coal mine accident approximately a month or so before I was born. He grew up poor almost nothing could keep him away from the water. Not even the severe burns he got when a tugboat exploded. What the hospital I took all my clothes away from me and I forget who came the hospital and I says give me some damn close so I get the hell out of here. Starting his business in the river during the Depression lot a lot who had no choice but to succeed. In my day you didn't have anybody unturned he couldn't make it on your own.

That was the end of you. He was an excellent competitor. I doubt he made me better and I made him better. Soon after Lew Russell and slim lop a lot of us started to work on the upper river there were 43 tugboat companies competing for business. By the early 50s there were two. Russell unlocked a lot of were fighting each other as much as they were the river. Lou loved to. Take a dig at me and I guess I love to take a dig at him that was part of our game. Like couple of old boys where you practically never gets slammed on the Russells together in one room. But because they would just they would just fight like they were just like Hatfields and McCoys. Well. I guess I never trusted little Junior. I never was able to trust him. Routine competition turned to hardball when a group of farmers formed a company called Columbia barge lines to compete with Lapa lotto and the Russells lot the lotto

says he and Russell's father made a gentlemen's agreement that neither one would attempt to buy the farmers talk called the ramp down here on the right around the corner picks up the telephone and makes a deal that comes only with Columbia bars last a charger their tug and barge. Well I better keep an eye on this guy. I had one of my welders go over and buy a couple share of the Columbia River from the barge line stuck. He soon learned that the Russells were planning to buy the farmer's tug outright at a Columbia Barge Line stockholders meeting like a lot of it took his shares and went to the meeting and we're all sitting around the meeting and job going around briefing the head of the meetings is well up a lot of you get your fanny outta here we'll go ahead with this meeting it was stockholders meeting halls on it's couple share of the stock and I'm a stockholder. Just heard a pin drop lump a lot of undercut the Russells he offered

less money to buy out the foreigners but he offered it up front and it had no meeting. Everybody don't go their own get their stock right up there by noon that day we all know when we have blurred lines they would accuse each other of cutting rates. They would accuse each other of doing special things to women. My customer you did this to get my customer and you went and sneaked in there and did this 900 and that kind of thing and it was just it was. Just highly highly high competition I guess you'd call it. But he did have a reputation of being tough and so did you. Yeah well now it's tougher. Russell saw his chance to prove it when La Plata lost to barge in the rocks below Salerno phone insurance company put the barge up for sale. And I thought well I don't know where to go set up but on that barge but oh I just had but I am like a lot of collected the insurance money for his stranded barge but he thought he could reclaim the barge for free if no one

submitted a bid to the insurance company to salvage it. But Lou Russell did for Russell the barge worth $100000 was a steal. So he got the parts pulling off balancing it and all the tricks I could think of. I couldn't get it off so fine and my dad made arrangements with the Corps of Engineers to raise River three nearly 400 miles up river Grand Coulee day. The water was released. It took four days to reach the stranded bar and they were as soon as the water hit there with a barge came off and then got in this big eddy and I had to run down to catch it because I had a ballast down the stern and it go about four miles an hour right for a rock bluff and then stop about 10 feet from the bluff and turn around go someplace else and never touch but scared the heck out of me. There were there were times like two little kids are really good. What was the feeling between the two companies.

Well I think we always speculate each other's abilities but very competitive very competitive you always think in that you want to get to the walks before the other company or if there was only one place to tie a barge up you want to be the first guy there to tie it up when the Dells dam was under construction. The river was squeezed through a narrow channel between the construction site and Big Eddy locks. Remember father used to he had to run all the talk to through that and he come on and the skipper was on it go to shake his head and Father Rocco then you can't do that. Can't do it can he just keep racking them up in a black smoke for. Skipper Sidney just we've seen is a flow off the water got so crazy and wild that you could not take a loaded barge upstream. The competition turned wild to the Corps of Engineers provided it docked for each company to pump petroleum above the dam side. But when one pump broke they had to share the one that worked. So about 10 o'clock at night I got a call from one of my captains that Sloman come down there and shut the pumps off.

Russell headed for the pumps taking no chances. So I put on my show when I used for jumping horses in those days. Just in case I got whopped on the deck I'd be able to get back up again. And I loaded my brother and you know automobile who was an ex for a Marine sergeant train for killing. For both men. Time was money when Slim came back down to shut off the pump. I pointed out to him he better not do that or he's going to get off. And he decided that maybe I was right. Couldn't see any any situation to get into fisticuffs just because a couple of brothers were a little bit up in arms and you did nothing. Not in my estimation. You know at one time the two companies weren't close at all. Factory had orders that you can't touch this guy you can't touch you can't pay for his dog to visit ground leaving the ground and I mean this thing really got really

gold after a while you know and of course the personnel the boats the other one that really took to heart because they were just the Sabr doing the same job and everything else and if we see you as a competitor Brown we're going to put him off you know. But what if they were caught doing any of that you know that place we could make money. In 1988 an early snow melt brought the worst flood in 50 years to the Columbia Basin. Then it rained. Above Grand Coulee Dam Roosevelt Lake was full and back in water into Canada by treaty between the United States and Canada the water had to be released and Umatilla the river crested at twenty eight feet above flood stage. Above Bonneville. The river claimed the tug. Robert Gray in Portland the community of Van port was destroyed. Fifty people died in the flood. The winner of one thousand forty nine was as cold as the previous winter had been warm. The river

was frozen solid talons above Bonneville were cut off and needed heating oil. Keith rode by the captain of the wind was trying to break through. And as it took us probably a week to make one trip sometimes. As he wouldn't go anything when David made it move Milan ahead just cold and miserable. When that wind was whistling by that pilot house it sounded if you had laid on a railroad track and had a train run over the top of it could have been more terrifying. There has never been another freeze like the one of 1949 McNary dam was finished that year covering Umatilla Rapids. The dams not only covered the rapids they lessen the threat of ice and floods. You know it's like a ferry boat. There's is no frogs and back and all the you know the problem that was fine. And.

The floodgates closed on the Dalles Dam in 1957 covering so little fall when the dam was finally blocked the Indians came down to watch its fill. They didn't believe it could happen. And then all of a sudden the water was still and of everything and the 10000 years the salmon the falls the place of worship. In 1968 the John Day dam would flood the last section of rapids on the Columbia River on the snake. Four more dams would be built to complete the four hundred sixty five mile inland waterway between Lewiston Idaho and the Pacific Ocean. Never had a river James so much so quickly. You guys missed a day. Glad when all the dams came along to name that they're running a lot smoother.

Well most of the boys that worked for me were kind of disappointed they're setting up to tame. They like to. Tell until soft quarter and I really. Love a lot it was sold in the navigation in the late 50s the river offered few challenges for him. He started boat businesses in Alaska and the offshore oil fields of California and Louisiana. He is 81 now. He and his wife Frances live in Vancouver Washington near the water. He works every day. What is it about the water. It's worse than cocaine. We decided that the two of us decided we were going to live on boats the rest of our lives. Lou Russell lives on a redesigned oil exploration vessel on Seattle's Lake Union with his wife Sandra. When he retired and sold Tidewater barge lines in the 80s. The company held a virtual monopoly on commercial transportation on the upper Columbia and then millions to make light of it. Yeah yeah yeah. Quite a few millions made a few millions then you really got it and never counted on every farm every wheat field.

From there on down to here I was a rock to these men because they hold their products down here down here we're goes to work goes into a ship or goes off to the markets of the world. When both men came to the upper Columbia not much grain moved down river in 1989 for medium times past to Bonneville locks and the ports of the Columbia are the leading exporters of agricultural products on the West Coast. Yeah those were tough days. We had our time of Iron Man and wooden ships here on this river the same as they did on the sea. I would fire captains of mind today if they would do things as I did when I was a youngster as a captain. This sounds terrible but I had such a wonderful life that I don't regret anything that I've done. Lou Russell has been battling cancer for more than a year. Bitter feelings about his battle

with Slim Lapa lotto are fading. You know it's very interesting that until he started discussing that I never realized that we were so much alike. We are a whole bunch. That's probably why we're since fierce competitors. Have been very interesting to see what happens when we work together. The Russell family was a very close knit family. He was very dedicated to his mother. I. Always have a lot of respect for Lou and for his father. I think that secretly I've always admired him and I have a hunch he's probably admired what I've done. And there is no way you could let on myself it was just a natural competitive thing of two different people and out of that excellence.

And that's the American way.