‘Terrible’ blast aboard steamboat Washoe near Sacramento killed dozens in 1864

When rescuers arrived at the scene of a devastating steamboat explosion south of Sacramento in September 1864, they discovered a horrific sight. “The river was strewed with pieces of the wreck and human forms blackened, scorched, and blistered, some dead and others writhing in agony on the splintered decks” The Sacramento Bee, then The Daily Bee, reported. “Shrieks of agony met the ear” as rescuers aboard the steamboat Antelope set to work, according to the account. An experimental new boiler on the steamboat Washoe exploded on the Sacramento River near Rio Vista about 35 miles south of Sacramento sometime between Sept. 6 — accounts differ on the precise date. More than 70 of the estimated 175 passengers were killed, with dozens more badly hurt. The explosion occurred while the Washoe was racing another steamboat, the Sacramento History Museum, which has an exhibit of remnants of the steamboat, said.

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