Talk:Steamboats of the Oregon Coast

Start of project
I've taken this little project about as far as I can without engaging in extensive digging through primary records. The steamboats we're talking about here were small and little notice was taken of them, so finding details and photos may prove difficult. Mtsmallwood (talk) 05:35, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Concern about Siuslaw Bay
The Siuslaw River flows past Florence, which is south of Lincoln City, not north. Though the bridge there is sometimes called the Siuslaw Bay bridge, there really isn't a "Siuslaw Bay". Is Siletz Bay meant here? Katr67 (talk) 19:17, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
 * don't know, will recheck authorities, thought Siuslaw, could be Siletz, maybe got too much egg nog and was confused. Mtsmallwood (talk) 22:53, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
 * okay, problem fixed, was confusing Siuslaw with Siletz. Mtsmallwood (talk) 01:34, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. I didn't go through the page history, but I don't see what you fixed. I commented out the questionable section. Let me make it clear--there is no natural feature called "Siuslaw Bay". See: http://nwdata.geol.pdx.edu/OR-GIS/PlaceNames/S.html Thanks. Katr67 (talk) 23:07, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
 * My understanding was that Siuslaw Bay and Siuslaw River pretty much the same thing, at least down by the ocean. A number of refs to Siuslaw Bay including official ones, such as Oregon Secretary of State, Oregon Department of Agriculture (shellfish safety warning and Oregon Administrative Rules. This is a common name for this area, as shown by this photo of the well-known "Suislaw Bay Bridge". "Siuslaw bay and river" or something like that works for me for this topic but clearly there's an area near the mouth of the river called "Siuslaw Bay" and it might be confusing to omit "bay" from the subtitle of the subtopic, and certainly it should be in the article whether it's called a bay or a river or both. Mtsmallwood (talk) 06:43, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Steamboat Graveyard
Shouldn't the photo links to the abandoned sternwheelers be right under the discussion of the steamboat graveyard? The Salem Public Library doesn't identify the abandoned boats, but Marshall in his book does, and they are clearly the same boats. Separating them from the discussion doesn't allow ready identification of which boats are shown. Mtsmallwood (talk) 22:53, 26 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I just made an effort to address this concern, by moving the on-page image, and moving the description of the linked images into the "external links" section. I think maybe the section needs a little more text though, to make it clear how the image fits in. What do you think? -Pete (talk) 23:02, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
 * this looks like a good solution, if I get some time tonight I can put the names of the boats in just above the links. Having the names will make the links more interesting. Mtsmallwood (talk) 23:14, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Reference cleanup
Would it be terrible to consolidate the refs section using tags (see here for example) and eliminate the page numbers so that there was only one listing in the reference section for McCurdy? There are a couple other duplicate references (without page numbers) that could definitely use that format. Katr67 (talk) 23:02, 9 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I cleaned up the Victor West collection references, does what I did look good to you guys? Not sure how to handle the book stuff. Without having the books, it's tough to say. If the books are not very well indexed, it seems worthwhile to preserve the page info; but if they have good indexes (indices?), it doesn't seem that important. Another option might be to reference things by chapter, which would be a kind of compromise between the extremes…all links, for instance, to Chapter 5 of the Timmen book could be combined. Not sure. Mtsmallwood, I think you're the only one with ready access to the books -- what do you think? -Pete (talk) 00:00, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
 * yes, that's much better, I took a whack at combining some of the other notes, let us hope that's an improvement. I'm hoping to get a good source pretty soon which may help give a more comprehensive picture of the Coos Bay and Coquille operations.Mtsmallwood (talk) 06:45, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

split-off articles
I like the new articles about Coquille and Coos Bay. The sections in this article should, I think, have a paragraph or two, in addition to the "main" links. Mtsmallwood, is that something you're working on? Should I try to summarize them? Happy to, if that would help. -Pete (talk) 18:19, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * please go ahead on the summaries in the main articles, and make any other changes you wish. I starting finding so much stuff on Coos and Coquille that I needed new pages for them, and I didn't have time to draft summary articles in the main section, but clearly that is needed.  I'm working on getting some more sources for these new pages.  Also, I have a new source which will help support a spin-off of the Yaquina Bay subsection, for which I've obtained a wonderful photo of the rather dubious waterborne contraptions that people used to ride around on.  Mtsmallwood (talk) 00:08, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Date for end of Coos Bay mosquito fleet
This is a bit of a mystery for me, the sources I have are vague. Also, if you count gasoline powered or diesel boats, well, maybe things are still going on, so there's something of an arbitrariness to the fixing of any particular date. I've located what could be a good source on the whole Coquille/Coos Bay inland boat history, which may clear this up, but I haven't been able to get my hands on it yet. Mtsmallwood (talk) 03:33, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Spin off page roster
Spin offs from this page are
 * Steamboats of the Coquille River
 * Steamboats of Coos Bay
 * Steamboats of Yaquina Bay and Yaquina River (contains lots of new material)Mtsmallwood (talk) 05:51, 19 January 2008 (UTC)