Editing Steamboat (section)

====West Coast====
In the mid-1840s the acquisition of Oregon and California opened up the West Coast to American steamboat traffic. Starting in 1848 Congress subsidized the [[Pacific Mail Steamship Company]] with $199,999 to set up regular [[packet ship]], mail, passenger, and cargo routes in the Pacific Ocean. This regular scheduled route went from [[Panama City]], Nicaragua and Mexico to and from [[History of San Francisco|San Francisco]] and [[History of Oregon|Oregon]]. Panama City was the Pacific terminus of the [[Isthmus of Panama]] trail across Panama. The Atlantic Ocean mail contract from East Coast cities and New Orleans to and from the [[Chagres River]] in Panama was won by the [[United States Mail Steamship Company]] whose first [[paddle wheel]] steamship, the SS Falcon (1848) was dispatched on 1 December 1848 to the Caribbean (Atlantic) terminus of the [[Isthmus of Panama]] trail—the [[Chagres River]].

The [[SS California (1848)|SS ''California'' (1848)]], the first [[Pacific Mail Steamship Company]] [[paddle wheel]] steamship, left [[History of New York City|New York City]] on 6 October 1848 with only a partial load of her about 60 saloon (about $300 fare) and 150 steerage (about $150 fare) passenger capacity. Only a few were going all the way to California.<ref>{{cite web |title=SS California (1848) |url=http://www.maritimeheritage.org/PassLists/ca022849.htm |website=Maritime Heritage |access-date=13 April 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19990424163308/http://www.maritimeheritage.org/PassLists/ca022849.htm |archive-date=24 April 1999 }}</ref> Her crew numbered about 36 men. She left New York well before confirmed word of the [[California Gold Rush]] had reached the East Coast. Once the [[California Gold Rush]] was confirmed by President [[James Polk]] in his [[State of the Union address]] on 5 December 1848 people started rushing to Panama City to catch the SS California. The {{SS|California|1848|6}} picked up more passengers in [[Valparaíso]], Chile and [[Panama City]], Panama and showed up in San Francisco, loaded with about 400 passengers—twice the passengers it had been designed for—on 28 February 1849. She had left behind about another 400–600 potential passengers still looking for passage from Panama City. The ''SS California ''had made the trip from Panama and Mexico after steaming around [[Cape Horn]] from New York—see [[SS California (1848)|SS ''California'' (1848)]].

The trips by paddle wheel steamship to Panama and Nicaragua from New York, Philadelphia, Boston, via New Orleans and Havana were about {{convert|2600|mi|km}} long and took about two weeks. Trips across the [[Isthmus of Panama]] or Nicaragua typically took about one week by native [[canoe]] and [[mule]] back. The {{convert|4000|mi|km}} trip to or from San Francisco to Panama City could be done by [[paddle wheel]] steamer in about three weeks. In addition to this, travel time via the Panama route typically had a two- to four-week waiting period to find a ship going from [[Panama City, Panama]] to San Francisco before 1850. It was not before 1850 that enough paddle wheel steamers were available in the Atlantic and Pacific routes to establish regularly scheduled journeys.

Other steamships soon followed, and by late 1849, paddle wheel steamships like the SS ''McKim'' (1848)<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.maritimeheritage.org/ships/ss.html |title=San Francisco Ships |website=Maritime Heritage |access-date=20 April 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110709104807/http://www.maritimeheritage.org/ships/ss.html |archive-date=2011-07-09}}</ref> were carrying miners and their supplies the {{convert|125|mi|km}} trip from San Francisco up the extensive [[Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta]] to [[Stockton, California]], [[Marysville, California]], [[Sacramento, California|Sacramento]], etc. to get about {{convert|125|mi|km}} closer to the gold fields. Steam-powered [[tugboat]]s and [[towboat]]s started working in the San Francisco Bay soon after this to expedite shipping in and out of the bay.

As the passenger, mail and high value freight business to and from California boomed more and more paddle steamers were brought into service—eleven by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company alone. The trip to and from California via Panama and paddle wheeled steamers could be done, if there were no waits for shipping, in about 40 days—over 100 days less than by wagon or 160 days less than a trip around [[Cape Horn]]. About 20–30% of the California Argonauts are thought to have returned to their homes, mostly on the East Coast of the United States via Panama—the fastest way home. Many returned to California after settling their business in the East with their wives, family and/or sweethearts. Most used the Panama or Nicaragua route till 1855 when the completion of the [[Panama Railroad]] made the Panama Route much easier, faster and more reliable. Between 1849 and 1869 when the [[first transcontinental railroad]] was completed across the United States about 800,000 travelers had used the Panama route.<ref>{{cite book |last=Delgado |first=James P. |author-link=James P. Delgado |title=To California by Sea |publisher=University of South Carolina Press |date=1996 |isbn=978-1-57003-153-3 |page=66}}</ref> Most of the roughly $50,000,000 of gold found each year in California were shipped East via the Panama route on paddle steamers, mule trains and canoes and later the [[Panama Railroad]] across Panama. After 1855 when the Panama Railroad was completed the Panama Route was by far the quickest and easiest way to get to or from California from the East Coast of the U.S. or Europe. Most California bound merchandise still used the slower but cheaper [[Cape Horn]] [[sailing ship]] route. The sinking of the [[paddle steamer]] {{SS|Central America}} (the ''Ship of Gold'') in a hurricane on 12 September 1857 and the loss of about $2&nbsp;million in California gold indirectly led to the [[Panic of 1857]].

Steamboat traffic including passenger and freight business grew exponentially in the decades before the Civil War. So too did the economic and human losses inflicted by snags, shoals, boiler explosions, and human error.<ref>{{cite book |first=Paul F |last=Paskoff |title= Troubled Waters: Steamboat Disasters, River Improvements, and American Public Policy, 1821–1860 |date=2007|isbn=978-0-8071-3268-5}}</ref>{{Rp | needed = yes | date=November 2012}}