Steamer "Shoshone"

The first captain sent to take her through the canyon, Cy Smith, got as far as Copper Ledge Falls in 1869, judged its eighteen-foot drop impossible and left her there. The company's orders to his replacement were to bring her down or wreck her in the attempt. Sebastian Miller and engineer Dan Buchanan cast off on April 19, 1870, lost eight feet of the bow going over the falls, and tied up at Lewiston on April 27. Only one other steamboat, the Norma in 1895, ever made the run. The Shoshone sank near Salem, Oregon, in 1874.

What the plaque says

Steamer "Shoshone" The boat was built in 1866 to provide easy river travel for a part of the route from the Columbia to Boise and Silver City. It was intended to ply 105 miles between here and Old's Ferry. Once, it even explored the river for 60 miles above here, astonishing the jackrabbits with its ambitious whistle. But business was poor and firewood for the boilers was scarce, and service stopped after a few trips. Finally in a hair-raising ride, the 136-foot, 300-ton boat was run down through Hell's Canyon to the Columbia. 194 Text prepared by the Idaho Historical Society Marker made & installed by Idaho Transportation Department

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• World Center for Birds of Prey — 21 mi
  The hilltop where the peregrine falcon was bred back from DDT, and where condors for the Grand Canyon country still hatch.
• Silver City — 23 mi
  An Owyhee silver camp that faded but never quite emptied, still lit by twelve-volt bulbs.
• Basque Block — 28 mi
  A merchant's 1864 brick house became the boardinghouse where herders from the Basque Country found beds, meals and their own language.
• Idaho State Capitol — 28 mi
  Walls hauled from the prison quarry, heat pumped from 3,000 feet down, and its newest rooms built underground.

More markers nearby

• Givens Springs — 7.3 mi
• Diamond Gulch — 13 mi
• War Eagle Mines — 13 mi
• Owyhee Country — 14 mi