Overview

A war over riches on the Columbia River. While the Civil War raged, a group of captains, merchants, bankers and gamblers in the Pacific Northwest formed the Oregon Steam Navigation Company. The first capitalistic enterprise in the new state, they aimed to develop the richest and most powerful transportation operation in the region, dominating hundreds of miles of river traffic from the Pacific Coast to Montana. Achieving such status was anything but easy. They battled competitors, lawyers, the river herself, and defectors within their management team. In the unregulated business environment of the nineteenth century, men like John Ainsworth made their own rules, often deploying frontier justice against their enemies. Join author Mychal Ostler as he recounts the battle for power that shaped an industry.

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9781467154086

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Mychal Ostler, MA, LMFT, is a native of the Columbia Gorge and grew up living and working on the river. A graduate of Central Washington University, he has a lifelong passion for the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, and its steamboats inspired the idea for this book. Mychal has written articles about the Oregon Steam Navigation Company and Columbia River steamboats for Sea History magazine and COLUMBIA magazine. Mychal lives with his wife, daughter and three pets in Raleigh, North Carolina.

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