The Brother Jonathan maritime disaster was the West Coast's Titanic. The sidewheel paddle steamship carried goods, gold and passengers between San Francisco, Portland and Vancouver.
Emily Hamilton / OPB
The shipwreck of the Brother Jonathan is one of the Pacific Coast’s deadliest maritime disasters.
In 1865, the ship crashed into a rock and sank off the coast of Crescent City, California, killing more than 200 people and taking a fortune in gold with it to the ocean floor.
OPB’s Kami Horton takes us on board to understand what happened that day, and learn about the people the ship carried before its demise, from all walks of life and all over the world.
Watch Kami Horton’s “Oregon Experience” documentary, The Wreck of the Brother Jonathan.
Listen to all episodes of “The Evergreen” podcast here.
