SS ''Iowa'' was a steamship built by the

Western Pipe and Steel Company The Western Pipe and Steel Company (WPS) was an American manufacturing company that is best remembered today for its construction of ships for the Maritime Commission in World War II. It also built ships for the U.S. Shipping Board in World W ...

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for "Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

in 1920 for the U.S. government and was known as the ''SS West Cadron''. It served in the Quaker Line subsidiary of the

States Steamship Company States Steamship Company, also called States Line and SSS, was started in 1928 by Charles Dant, in Portland, Oregon and later moved to the headquarters to San Francisco. Dant started the States Steamship Company to take his lumber product to mar ...

. from 1928—when it was renamed the ''Iowa''—until January 12, 1936, when it ran aground on Peacock Spit,

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

, part of the

Columbia Bar The Columbia Bar, also frequently called the Graveyard of the Pacific, is a system of bars and shoals at the mouth of the Columbia River spanning the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington. It is known as one of the most dangerous bar crossings in t ...

at the mouth of the Columbia River. SS ''Iowa'' was travelling from

Longview, Washington Longview is a city in Cowlitz County, Washington, United States. It is the principal city of the Longview, Washington Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Cowlitz County. Longview's population was 37,818 at the time of the 2 ...

where it had taken on a load of lumber. The ship was carrying more than 6,900 long tons of cargo. Around midnight, as SS ''Iowa'' was crossing the Columbia River bar, a gale estimated at 75 mph hit the ship. Captain Edgar Yates was experienced crossing the bar and had not brought a

bar pilot A maritime pilot, marine pilot, harbor pilot, port pilot, ship pilot, or simply pilot, is a mariner who maneuvers ships through dangerous or congested waters, such as harbors or river mouths. Maritime pilots are regarded as skilled professionals ...

aboard. At the

Cape Disappointment Lighthouse The Cape Disappointment Light is a lighthouse on Cape Disappointment near the mouth of the Columbia River in the U.S. state of Washington. History In 1848, a lighthouse was recommended to be located at Cape Disappointment in what was then t ...

around 2 a.m., a Coast Guard observer witnessed the ship start to turn south and then turn to the north toward Peacock Spit where water depths are only around . The Astoria Coast Guard station received the ''Iowa'' distress call around 4:30 a.m. The Coast Guard cutter ''Onondaga'' was dispatched after the

SOS is a Morse code distress signal (), used internationally, that was originally established for maritime use. In formal notation is written with an overscore line, to indicate that the Morse code equivalents for the individual letters of "SOS" ...

was received. Attempts were made to communicate with the ship by observers at the lighthouse using radio, light signals, and flags. The observers saw a flash of light from the ship and a few flags raised in response, but were unable to decipher any messages from the ship in the stormy conditions. By the time that the ''Onondaga'' arrived, only masts were visible above the waves. All 34 people aboard the ship died, and only six bodies were recovered from the wreckage that dotted local shorelines for days.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Iowa, SS Ocean liners 1920 ships Shipwrecks of the Oregon coast Ships built in San Francisco Maritime incidents in 1936