The Goliah and a Fata Morgana on Juan de Fuca

The Goliah and a Fata Morgana on Juan de Fuca

From the desk of Steve Willis, Central Library Services Program Manager of the Washington State Library:

Even when this randomly found article in the July 29, 1911 issue of The Irondale News was published, the Jefferson County town was already declining. In the 1880s-1890s Irondale seemed destined to become the steel center for the Pacific Northwest, but it was not to be.

In between all the columns of news coverage about the metal industry, I found this odd little piece. It almost reads like the lyrics to the Beatles’ Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds. Just south of Port Townsend, Irondale was a waterfront town and interested in news of the Strait of Juan de Fuca:

 SEES MIRAGE IN STRAITS

 Officers of Tug Goliah Witness Remarkable Phenomena.

“Officers of the Tug Goliah reports having witnessed a wonderful mirage while crossing the Strait of Fuca Wednesday afternoon. During the mysterious phenomenon, which lasted nearly two hours, the Olympic mountain range was mirrored in the heavens while several vessels that appeared in the picture seemed to float in the clouds like so many aeroplanes.”

“The horizon seemed scarcely a mile away and the mountains seemed to hang from the clouds. The Olympics were apparently lifted a thousand feet in the air, while Smith island appeared at intervals in the clouds. The vessels in the picture were inverted and seemed sailing in a sea of clouds. The phenomenon was first noticed about noon and it lasted until about 2 o’clock.”

“Such mirages are not infrequent in the North Pacific and many travelers along the Alaskan coast have reported witnessing similar conditions in the Far North.”

This amazing form of mirage is called a Fata Morgana is not all that common in our corner of the world.

The Goliah, the tugboat mentioned in this article, was legendary. Gordon Newell devoted an entire chapter to this deepwater steam tug in his book, Pacific Tugboats. Built by John Dialogue of Camden, N.J. in 1907, the Goliah was towed by a sister tug, the Hercules, to San Francisco. Goliah was purchased by the Puget Sound Tug Boat Company in 1909. During the tug’s short stay in Washington State, it was involved in several exciting rescue missions as outlined by Newell. During World War I the tug was bought by the U.S. Navy where it had a supporting role in rescue and salvage in Europe. The Goliah spent its final decades owned by the Wood Towing Company of Norfolk, Va. It was scrapped in 1952, but its sister ship, the Hercules, still operates to this day under the status of a National Historic Landmark in the Bay Area.

A history of Irondale’s place in the Northwest steel industry can be found in Diane F. Britton’s The Iron and Steel Industry in the Far West : Irondale, Washington (1991).

Irondale has also recently been the subject of interest from the Washington State Dept. of Ecology. These publications have been digitized by the Washington State Library and can be viewed online.

 

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