Robert Moran (January 26, 1857 – March 27, 1943) was a Seattle shipbuilder who served as the city's mayor from 1888 to 1890. Today he is primarily remembered for Moran Brothers Co. shipbuilders, his work as mayor to rebuild after the Great Seattle fire, and his large estate on Orcas Island, which became a resort and

Moran State Park Moran State Park is a public recreation area on Orcas Island in Puget Sound's San Juan Islands in the state of Washington, United States. The state park encompasses over 5,000 acres of various terrain including forests, wetlands, bogs, hills, and ...

Biography

A native of New York City, Moran was 18 when, in 1875, he arrived penniless in Seattle, a frontier outpost in the Pacific Northwest, which had been settled in November 1851, and only incorporated between 1865 and 1869. After years of working on

steamboat A steamboat is a boat that is marine propulsion, propelled primarily by marine steam engine, steam power, typically driving propellers or Paddle steamer, paddlewheels. Steamboats sometimes use the ship prefix, prefix designation SS, S.S. or S/S ...

s he earned enough money to send for his family and, by 1882, he and his brothers started a marine repair business at Yesler's wharf. The Moran Brothers Company prospered during the Klondike Gold Rush when, among other projects, they built a fleet of twelve paddlewheel riverboats ( hull Nos. 9–20), which were successfully delivered to the