This was a great, important time in the life of Klamath Falls some 101 years ago.
Some months before in the summer of 1904 a man named John T. Totton decided to sell his store in Stevenson, Washington, and move to Klamath Falls.
Klamath Falls was an up and coming community. There was talk of a tremendous irrigation effort that would open thousands of acres to farming. There was also talk of an approaching railroad.
Totton teamed up with a man named Harry Hansberry in a scheme to build a huge boat for use on Upper Klamath Lake. There were no formal plans or blueprints for the boat, but the hull was designed by an Egyptian who carved a model for the builders out of pine.
The boiler of the boat alone weighed about 14,000 pounds and was brought to Pokegama by rail and then by horse to the building site alongside Link River.
Joe Moore and his ten horse team hauled the boiler in to Klamath Falls.
The boat would be the biggest by far on the Lake. It was 125 feet long with a 22 foot beam and it cost about $10,000 to construct.
On a chilly January 28, 250 Klamathites gathered alongside Link Rived for a momentous event…..the christening of the big boat…named the Winema, after the heroine of the Modoc War.
It was a committee composed of Oscar Stone, L. F. Willits, George Bishop, Ross Andersen and J.C. Rutenic who finally settled on the name from a large group of suggestions.
It was found that three people had all suggested the name Winema. The three were Mrs. F. W. Jennings (formerly Mollie Reames), F. H. Brandenberg and Paul Delaney. All three names were put in a hat and the name of Mrs. Jennings was drawn to christen the boat.
Wielding a bottle of French wine, Mrs. Jennings dedicated the boat thusly: “On the waters of the Mighty Klamath, Under God’s blue canopy, with wine from sunny France, I christen thee Winema.
The Winema would serve in many ways of Upper Klamath Lake up until 1919.
Then she was pulled out of the Lake and was destroyed by a fire in 1927 reportedly caused by sparks from a nearby donkey engine.
One of the two sponsors…Hansberry came to a tragic end in 1937. He lived beyond the Lake of the Woods junction on the west side highway. One day he was loading an engine to be hauled to a pump when a mare’s ear touched a clothesline, she bolted. Hansberry got tangled up in the lines, was dragged a considerable way. Brought to a local hospital he died about 9:45 p.m.
The other partner, Totten, lived on Front Street not far from where his boat used to dock and lived to an old age.
The Winema was followed later that year by the Launching of the Klamath on Lower Klamath Lake.
The launchings were momentous times for the little community.
` The history of the boats of the area is included in my volume….Great Moments in Klamath History.
This is Floyd Wynne and that’s THE VIEW FROM HERE.