290204 - Discovery of the Columbia River

After launching the Empire Builders series with a 3-part nod to James J. Hill, the Great Northern’s own “Empire Builder,” the railway next drew upon the life and accomplishments of Captain Robert Gray to portray historic events in the early history of the Pacific Northwest. Gray’s exploration of the coastal areas of what would eventually become Oregon and Washington were dramatized in the Monday night broadcast of February 4, 1929.

Gray sailed his flagship, the Lady Washington, along the coast of a future Oregon and located what he named Tillamook Bay. He also located the mouth of the Columbia River. Gray and his crew encountered various groups of natives, resulting in at least one or two skirmishes and loss of life. This is dramatized in the radio broadcast when Marcus Lopez, Gray’s West African cabin boy, perished near the shoreline.

The script for this story contains a high degree of “ugly American” dialogue, including some casual use of the now infamous “n-word” in reference to some of the Native Americans. The exchange between some of Gray’s unvarnished deck hands and the Chinese people they encounter on their voyage back to Boston is likewise unabashedly rough and rude. But in real life, as in the radio play, Gray and his men accomplish the notable feat of being the first American vessel to ever circumnavigate the world. In the Orient, Gray successfully traded many North American furs for a large load of Chinese tea – much of which was spoiled on the trip across the Atlantic. Nevertheless, Gray was toasted in Boston for his ‘round the world voyage.

 

Illustration from crewmember Robert Haswell’s log of the voyages of the Columbia and Lady Washington

After a very brief stay of only a matter of weeks, Gray set out again for the Pacific coast, this time as captain of the ship Columbia. On his return to the area that now comprises northern Oregon and southern Washington, Gray and his crew definitively located the mouth of the Columbia River, which of course took its name from Gray’s ship.

As with most of the Empire Builders episodes, the Old Timer provides the opening narration, several transitional narrations to provide a segue to leap across spans of time, and narration at the end of the program to wrap things up. In this broadcast, the Old Timer is accompanied by his old hound dog, January (named for the month in which he was born – perhaps suggestive of the launching of the Empire Builders series in January).