For the first time in 50 years, tugboat history spanning the Pacific Coast and beyond is presented in a new book. Tugboats on Puget Sound features nearly 200 vintage images, culled from co-author Capt. Mark Freeman’s collection of more than 100,000 tugboat photos and includes a narrative by Freeman and co-author Chuck Fowler.
Tugboats on Puget Sound tells the colorful story of tug boating on Puget Sound dating back to the 1850s when the first steam-powered tugboats arrived in the Sound from the East Coast via San Francisco.
Also now available is a set of 15 postcards featuring a selection of vintage images from Tugboats on Puget Sound. The set retails for $7.99. The authors hope that both products “will help fill a 50 year-long void and inspire other authors to create more comprehensive histories of this fascinating maritime subject.”
Highlights of Tugboats on Puget Sound:
• The earliest tugs in the mid-1800s, the transition from steam to diesel power, business boom and bust
periods, wartime operations, and modern tug design
• The historical migration of tugboats from the Atlantic to the Pacific Coasts, and from California to Puget Sound beginning in the mid and late 19th century as they followed Gold Rush based economic development and progress
• Fremont Tugboat and its 90 year history