In spite of difficulties and rivalry, the White Star Navigation Company grew. They bought from Carscellan Brothers the freight boat Telephone. In 1906 they added the one-hundred-and-thirty-foot Flyer. And in 1908, when the Northern Pacific condemned the old Georgie Oakes as unseaworthy, they bought her cheap, and, expending $10,000 for repairs and renovation, made practically a new boat of her. The Flyer was built by Johnson, and it was generally agreed that she was his masterpiece" (pp. 147-148).
"The Flyer, under the captainship of Claude Barnes, continued to run to St. Maries until 1935. For some years she made two trips weekly and a Sunday excursion trip. Finally she made Sunday trips only. In 1938, Potlatch forests, owners of both the Flyer and the Clipper, decided they had no further use for the two boats and deliberately burned them on the lake.
Steamboats made it possible for people to have easy access to the area around Coeur d'Alene Lake and its interior in a time when there were few roads and no highways. By 1910, there were more than 40 large steamboats on Lake Coeur d'Alene. During weekdays the steamboats carried freight, mail, businessmen and lumberjacks to communities, rail lines and mills on the lake and up the rivers. On Sundays, excursion boats carried passengers on pleasure trips.
The Red Collar Line and the White Star Navigation Company controlled the steamboat business on Lake Coeur d'Alene. Steamboat transportation peaked in about 1915 when the automobile was gaining popularity and railroads were well established. Steamboats continued to operate into the late 1930s but the grandeur of those early years was gone.
From the Museum of Idaho