Lucin, A Boat [Book Review]

Tale of the Lucin: A Boat, a Railroad and the Great Salt Lake

(First published to the UtahRails.net blog on Blogspot on October 20, 2007)

(Book review published in Utah Historical Quarterly, Volume 69, Number 4, Fall 2001, page 360)

Tale of the Lucin: A Boat, a Railroad and the Great Salt Lake. By David Peterson. (Trinidad, California: Old Waterfront Publishing, 2001. 158 pp. Paper, $16.95)

(Book is out of print -- Read the digital version; PDF; 97.2MB; 159 pages)

Whether we admit it or not, all of our lives are touched by the history of America's railroads, and it can be an unusual involvement with railroads and railroading that makes us each aware of that association. In the case of author David Peterson, who spent some of his formative years on the Pacific Ocean at Eureka, California, his story began with a boat, the oldest boat in the fleet at Eureka’s dockside.

This wonderful 158-page book tells the story of small boat that started its life in 1893 as a passenger launch on San Francisco Bay. Along the way, this book also tells the story of boats and shipping on Utah's Great Salt Lake, and the story of the completion of one of the greatest engineering feats of the Twentieth Century, the construction of Southern Pacific's Lucin Cutoff across this famous inland sea. In 1902 the boat was moved by Southern Pacific to the Great Salt Lake to help build the earth-fill and wooden trestle across the lake, becoming the first of a fleet of both large and small boats operated by the railroad on the lake.

For anyone interested in the Great Salt Lake, or railroads in Utah, this book is a must read. It begins with full review of the boats and shipping on Great Salt Lake, including the early explorers, and early attempts by Patrick Connor to use his steamer "Kate Connor" to ship mineral ores from Stockton on the south shore to Corrine on the newly completed railroad line on the north shore. Included is a review of the resorts and their excursion boats. The book makes excellent use of maps and photographs as visual aids.

Chapter Two relates the story of the construction of the railroad's Lucin Cutoff, beginning with the early engineering studies, and the 1900 decision to begin construction. The Lucin Cutoff was completed in 1904, and the author was able to complete extensive research, and successfully relates many aspects of the cutoff's difficult construction features. Intertwined are bits of how Southern Pacific's fleet of boats, specifically, the Lucin, did their part in the cutoff's construction. Especially well done are examples of the challenges of using earth fill to cross what was, and still is, a lake that has at its bottom a thin salt crust layer atop "10,000 feet of mud." The delicate balance between the weight of the fill material, and the ability of the lake bottom to support the load is a battle that continues today.

Additional sub-chapters tell the stories of how the same construction crew, and their boats, built Southern Pacific's Dumbarton Cutoff across the southern part of San Francisco Bay, which was completed 1910. Under the heading of "What's Next," the author presents material about the maintenance of the Lucin Cutoff, and its complete replacement in 1959 with an all-earth fill. This new fill also used a fleet of boats, and these later sub-chapters relate the modern methods of moving massive amounts of fill through the use of large tugs and barges. Later sub-chapters bring the reader up to date with the subsequent removal-from-service of the original wooden trestle, and the reclamation of its virgin-growth redwood lumber.

An interlude chapter does an excellent job at what the author calls biographies of all the San Francisco Bay launches that served on Great Salt Lake. In it are histories of the individual boats that Southern Pacific moved to and from the bay area to Utah.

A final chapter returns to the later history of the boat Lucin, the survivor. This little boat was returned to San Francisco Bay with the completion of its namesake cutoff in 1904. The chapter contains numerous details of how the boat was converted from its original passenger launch configuration to a more utilitarian tug configuration. Its use on the bay ended with its sale, and movement in 1917 to Portland, Oregon, for service at the mouth of the Columbia River. In 1937, the tug was sold for its powerful gasoline engine, and in 1939 the hull was sold and converted from a medium-draft tug to a deep-draft fishing boat. This reviewer will leave the story of the boat’s final years to prospective readers to discover with their own reading of this most enjoyable book. The book ends with a note from the author seeking additional information, and a full bibliography that relates the author's journey for research for anyone who might want to follow in his path. A full index is also included.

In his prologue, the author states, "History does not neatly divide into separate topics and periods; it is a complex weave of all that has ever passed." Nothing confirms this statement better than this book. While it is the story, or rather a tale, of a boat, it is also the story a railroad and the Great Salt Lake, and of man's crossing of the lake. There is no better history than history placed in context, which this book does very well.

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