Running from Point Defiance to Sidney, British Columbia, the Washington State ferry system is the single largest tourist attraction in the state, with 28 routes and 23 million riders annually. In this volume, travelers are invited to look back to the past and bid Puget Sound's "ancient mariners" a fond farewell.

Explore the colorful heritage of one of the world's most unique mass transit systems. Meticulously researched, it is historically accurate yet filled with fascinating anecdotes that will engage and delight readers.

For over a century, water has connected the communities on Puget Sound, starting with days of the iron-hulled steamers of the Black Ball Line and continuing to the vessels of Washington State Ferries. Puget Sound continues to be a vital link between cities, well into the era of smart phones and self-driving cars. From the recycled ferries of San Francisco Bay to the elegant pocket liners of the Canadian Pacific Railway, transporting people from one isolated community to another has grown to carrying 25 million commuters and tourists every year. Modern ferry travel on Puget Sound begins with the converted passenger steamers at the early part of the twentieth century. Built in the days before cars became the main mode of travel, these small steamers morphed into the blueprint of today's largest double-ended ferries in the United States. Ferry travel today is as scenic as in the days of Model Ts and steamships. Puget Sound remains a nautical highway as much now as it was in the era of high button shoes and derby hats.

While square-rigged sailing ships, steamboats and ferries, and ever-larger cruise and cargo-carrying vessels have made their mark on Puget Sound's maritime history, no other vessels have captured the imagination of shore-bound seafarers like tugboats. Beginning in the 1850s when the first steam-powered tugboats arrived in the Sound from the East Coast via San Francisco, company owners and their crews competed fiercely for business, towing ships, log rafts, and barges. The magnetic attraction of powerful, tough tugs both large and small is unexplainable but enduring. This book, featuring about 200 rare historic images and carefully researched text, tells the colorful story of tug boating on Puget Sound.

Before the advent of roads in western Washington, steamboats of the Mosquito Fleet swarmed all over Puget Sound. Sidewheelers, stern-wheelers, and propeller-driven, they ranged from the tiny 40-foot Marie to the huge 282-foot Yosemite, and from the famous Flyer to the unknown Leota. Floating stores like the Vaughn and shrimpers like the Violet sailed the same waters as the elegant Great Lakes lady, the Chippewa, and the homely Willie. A few, like the Bob Irving and Blue Star, died spectacularly or, like Major Tompkins, shipwrecked after a short time, while others began new lives as tugboats or auto ferries; some even survive today as excursion boats like the Virginia V. From 1853 to modern car ferries in the 1920s, this volume chronicles the heyday of steamboating--a unique segment of maritime history--from modest launch to sleek liner.