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Crossing the Bar

On March 22, 1811, the ship Tonquin sighted the mouth of the Columbia River. The vessel, owned by fur trader John Jacob Astor, had left New York in September 1810, sailed around South America, and picked up extra provisions and crew in the Hawaiian Islands before sailing on to the Pacific Northwest. Also aboard the Tonquin were representatives of the Pacific Fur Company, who intended to establish the first American trading post on the Columbia.

The sea was stormy that day, and Captain Jonathan Thorn ordered his first mate and four of his crew to launch a longboat and sound the notoriously treacherous channel. The small boat and its sailors were lost in the waves. Another unsuccessful attempt was made the next day. A third boat eventually located the channel, but sank before it could return to the ship. Thorn ordered the Tonquin to cross the bar, which it did ... just barely. In all, eight crewmembers died aboard the longboats. The body of one Hawaiian Islander crewmember was recovered, and his grieving countrymen gave him a traditional funeral.

The crew and passengers of the Tonquin eventually made their way upriver, where they set up an outpost in what was christened Astoria. The ship remained there for two months, while the Astorians built a fort and traded with Chinook and Clatsop Indians. In June the Tonquin sailed back out into open seas and headed north to trade furs, but the worst of its journey was not over. While trading with native inhabitants of Vancouver Island, the ship was attacked and most of the crew was killed. The last man aboard held out long enough to light the ship’s gunpowder magazine, blowing the vessel sky high.

Brighter by Far

On March 22, 1886, Seattle agents of Thomas Edison switched on the first central incandescent lighting plant west of the Rockies. Before long the city's streets and homes were being illuminated by this innovation, and electricity was soon used to power streetcars as well. This led to the creation of a regional electric monopoly, which in turn triggered development of Seattle City Light.

Just months after Edison's men flipped the switch in Seattle, Tacoma began lighting its city streets and running trolley lines with power bought from private firms. The city found this arrangement unacceptable and became a vanguard in the municipal-ownership movement by taking control of its public utilities. Tacoma soon began harnessing the power of nearby rivers, and this week marks the first delivery of electricity from Cushman Dam No. 1, on March 23, 1926.

An even greater event in the annals of Washington's hydroelectric history took place on March 22, 1941. On that day, two small service generators at Grand Coulee Dam went online for the first time, sending some 10,000 kilowatts of electricity into the Bonneville Power Administration’s transmission network. Small as it was, there was more hoopla for this event than there was when the dam's main generators began to fire up just a few months later.