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    Foss Maritime Company
    Foss Maritime Company
    Foss Maritime Company
    Ebook184 pages55 minutes

    Foss Maritime Company

    By Michael Stork

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    About this ebook

    Anyone viewing the ports of Tacoma or Seattle will be familiar with the green-and-white Foss tugboats directing huge ships into docks, scurrying alongside barges filled with products from around the world,
    and patiently pulling rafts filled with logs to mills or to ships headed overseas. Since 1889, the Foss family has taken their business from rowboats to powered launches, eventually developing some of the most powerful tugboats in the world. Foss Launch and Tug is a true American success story of struggling Norwegian immigrants who came to the Pacific Northwest and parlayed a single rowboat sale into a vast fleet. Now known as Foss Maritime Company, the business has expanded well beyond its Tacoma-harbor birthplace to secure for itself a niche in the worldwide market.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateAug 15, 2007
    ISBN9781439618431
    Foss Maritime Company
    Author

    Michael Stork

    Author Mike Stork has had a front-row seat to this industry growth, as his father was a captain for Foss Launch and Tug from 1946 to 1973. An avid maritime photographer, Stork has also taken numerous photographs for the company�s newsletter, Tow Bitts. In this volume, he tells Foss� Always Ready story with more than 200 rare images and memorabilia contributed by the Foss Maritime Company archives, as well as by Foss families, friends, and employees. These images, combined with informative captions, pay tribute to one of the world�s maritime industry leaders.

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      Book preview

      Foss Maritime Company - Michael Stork

      Company

      One

      ROWBOATS AND LAUNCHES

      Ole Thorvaddsen was the father of Foss founder Andrew Olesen, who was born on the family farm in Skirfoss, Norway, in 1855. Upon coming to America in 1878, Andrew changed his name to Andrew Olesen Fossen (which means waterfall in Norwegian) and then later to Foss. (Courtesy Tina Foss.)

      Andrew married Thea Christiansen of Eidsberg, Norway, in a Lutheran church in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1881, and they had two boys, Arthur (1885) and Wedell (1887). Andrew worked as a carpenter in Minnesota for almost eight years, but the harsh winters were hard on him, and the family decided to move to the Northwest with its milder weather. (Courtesy Tina Foss.)

      In 1888, Andrew took a job with the Northern Pacific Railroad and traveled to Tacoma, Washington, which at the time was the terminus for the Northern Pacific. Tacoma proved a wise choice, as its deep harbor and wooded hills reminded him of Norway. The following year, he sent for his family, which included recently born Lillian. (Courtesy Washington State Historical Society TDF15.)

      The trip west by train was extremely hard on Thea. Traveling in an immigrant train with three small children proved taxing. Only three weeks after the family was reunited in Tacoma, Thea came down with typhoid-pneumonia and almost died. While this photograph was taken in 1915, trains were still the primary mode of transportation for people coming to Tacoma. (Courtesy Tacoma Public Library.)

      In this historical reenactment for the documentary Finding Thea, Brynn Foss Rydell plays Thea purchasing her first rowboat. The rowboat used in the 2006 film was built by Andrew and now resides in the Foss Seaport Museum in Tacoma. (Photograph by author.)

      Thea reclaimed a number of rowboats and provided a good income for the family. Andrew seized on the opportunity and began to build his own boats. By 1891, the boat rental business was in full swing, and a third son, Henry, was born. The family moved the float house to a new location near the Union Pacific Railroad Bridge. Sons Arthur and Wedell helped build the float house by carrying lumber and purchasing supplies at the local hardware store. Proud of their new business, Thea painted the Foss slogan Always Ready on the rooftop. (Courtesy Foss

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