WT Preston, Snagboat museum at Maritime Heritage Center in Anacortes, US.

The W. T. Preston is a sternwheel snagboat with a welded steel hull and a superstructure built in 1939, which reused the stern wheel, main engines, smokestack and foredeck equipment of its 1929 wooden-hulled predecessor. An A-frame crane on the foredeck lifted sunken logs and debris from Puget Sound rivers. It is now dry-berthed at the Maritime Heritage Center in Anacortes.

The original W. T. Preston was a 163-foot wooden-hulled snagboat that worked Puget Sound until 1939, when the Army Corps of Engineers built a welded steel hull and transferred the stern wheel, main engines, smokestack and foredeck equipment onto it. The new vessel used machinery from the 1914 Swinomish and operated from Olympia to Blaine, including the Skagit, Stillaguamish and Snohomish rivers. As river transport declined, it took on dredging, firefighting and general work until its 1981 retirement.

The vessel reveals how local communities depended on clear waterways for commerce and daily life in the Pacific Northwest. Walking through it, you can see the practical relationship between the river workers and the region's growth.

The museum is open from April through October, with daily access during the warmer months. Look for informational signs throughout the deck that explain the working areas and machinery to help you understand how the vessel operated.

The W. T. Preston's crew once retrieved a sunken military bomber, and also pulled several automobiles from the water. The vessel's mission shifted as river freight declined, taking on dredging and firefighting work. Its engines, pumps and hardware came from the 1914 snagboat Swinomish, itself built to replace the Skagit, the first snagboat on Puget Sound rivers.