C.A. Thayer (1895)

The C.A. Thayer is a survivor of a lost era when hundreds of sailing schooners dominated the Pacific Coast. Built in 1895, this three-masted wooden vessel was designed specifically to navigate the treacherous, shallow inlets of the West Coast known as dog holes. These tiny, rocky coastal indentations were often the only places to load timber from the massive redwood forests of Northern California, Washington, and Oregon. The ship was engineered with a shallow draft and a broad hull to carry over half a million board feet of Douglas fir. To keep labor costs low, the schooner utilized a steam donkey engine on deck, which acted as an early form of automation. This specialized equipment allowed a skeleton crew of only eight or nine men to manage the enormous sails and load massive amounts of heavy timber, a task that would have otherwise required far more hands. In 1912, the rise of steam-powered vessels forced the C.A. Thayer into a second career as a salmon transport. Each spring, she would depart San Francisco for the remote waters of Alaska, carrying small gill-net boats, tons of salt, and workers who would spend the summer canning fish. She later served as a cod-fishing vessel and even a wartime ammunition barge before completing her final commercial voyage in 1950. She stands today as the last remaining example of the great sailing fleet that once built the cities of the American West.