MEN PROMINENT IN THE RAFTING INDUSTRY 221 



ment to get his pilot's license ; but he got it without their 

 help, proved his merit by his work and quit the river 

 with a competency, which he did not lose when he went 

 ashore but increased it by successful enterprise since. 



CAPTAIN GEORGE WINANS 



The subject of this sketch began rafting in 1856, the 

 year I was born, and the next year, when only eighteen 

 years old, he piloted a lumber raft from Reads Landing 

 to Knapp Stout and Company at Dubuque. He ran his 

 last raft of logs from Saint Paul to Prescott in 1916, his 

 entire service covering a stretch of sixty years. During 

 this time he had owned the steamers "Admiral," "C. 

 W. Cowles," "Dan Thayer," "Frank," "Julia," 

 "Mars," "Neptune," "John H. Douglas," "May Lib- 

 by," "St. Croix," "Pathfinder," "Sam Atlee," "Satelite 

 I," "Satelite II," "Saturn," "Saturn II," "Silas 

 Wright," and "Zalus Davis," and served as master and 

 pilot on many others including the "Union," "Alvira," 

 "Buckeye," "Chippewa Falls," "J. W. Van Sant I," 

 "Pearl," "G. H. Wilson," "Lone Star," "Mountain 

 Belle," "City of Winona," "A. J. Whitney," "Jas. 

 Means," and "Wyman X." 



Captain Winans was the first pilot to try to run a raft 

 with a steamboat. In September, 1863, he chartered a 

 little side-wheel geared boat of only twenty-nine tons; 

 hitched her into the stern of a lumber raft at Reads 

 Landing and started for Hannibal. 



He prudently had secured a good bow crew to work 

 the forward end and he also had men to form a full 

 stern crew if the steamboat failed to handle her end. 



Owing to the lack of a rig or machine to change or 

 control the position of the boat behind the raft they 

 soon got in trouble and before going ten miles, he let 



