S. L. DOWELL Gas TUG Sunk in Lake Washington The
S.
L. Dowell struck a snag off Mercer Island
in Lake Washington on
October 12, 1922 and immediately sank in 180 feet of water south of the
520
bridge. George Wahl, master, and William Holslar, engineer, leaped to a
gravel
scow the vessel was towing and narrowly escaped drowning.
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 The 45
foot gas tug S. L. Dowell, was built in Friday Harbor in 1899 as the steamer Griffin, and brought up to Lake
Washington via
the Black River in 1910 or 1911. The Black
River once flowed at the south end of Lake Washington
but dried up in 1916 due to the lowering of the lake to create the ship
canal. In
1901 S.L. Dowell handled the output of the Renton coal mine,
and had 3 coal yards in his name; one at
James Street,
one at 26th and Dearborn,
and another in the vicinity of Broadway and Highland Drive. Dowell
sold his coal business in 1906 to JW Bullick and
in 1908 entered into a contract with the Pacific Coast Coal Company for
the
wholesale and exclusive delivery of coal on Lake Washington.
<>Originally named the Griffin, the S.L. Dowell was a three-man steam tug first believed, in accounts from his son, to be leased to his father, S.L. Dowell. Around 1911, Dowell was using the Griffin to transport coal, brought in by train from Newcastle and Black Diamond, from a pier at the south end of Lake Washington to a woolen mill (Kirkland), a pumping plant at Leschi, and a (parental) school on Mercer Island. In 1912 Dowell decided to install a Corliss gas engine, and at the same time stripped the Griffin down, put on new decks and made the tug a one-pilot house control. It was at this time when the Griffin was also renamed the S.L. Dowell. The Dowell was seen at times with 5 barges and up to 26 carloads of coal. Later the Dowell could be seen hauling coal, sand, logs and gravel. from: DCS Films.
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