Photograph of Arthur Foss — Photograph by Joe Mabel derivative work: Steven Pavlov, CC BY-SA 3.0. Via Wikimedia Commons.

ARTHUR FOSS (tugboat)

A National Historic Landmark. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.

From the record

“Arthur Foss, built in 1889 as Wallowa at Portland, Oregon, is likely the oldest wooden tugboat afloat in the world. Its 79-year commercial service life began with towing sailing ships over the Columbia River bar, and ended with hauling bundled log rafts on the Strait of Juan de Fuca in 1968.”
Wikipedia article Arthur Foss, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 324 National Register listings published here for King County · listed in 1989 · category: Structure · a National Historic Landmark.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

National Historic Landmark. The highest federal designation, held by about 2,600 places in the country against roughly 100,000 Register listings.
What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 structure as contributing to the listing.
Still standing. The Park Service records this property as extant.
Address. Moss Bay waterfront, Kirkland, 98109
When was it listed? April 1989
Category. structure
Census division. Seattle
National Register reference number. 89001078 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Mines and quarries near this property

2 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 2 workings within 5 miles of ARTHUR FOSS (tugboat): 2 past producers. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where	Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
	Unnamed Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
	Unnamed Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

Every working recorded in King County

Storms near this property

6 since 1997

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Kirkland, the town this property stands in, in 6 storm reports between 1997 and 2008: 2 lightning, 2 heavy rain, 2 funnel cloud. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
December 2006	Heavy Rain	Kirkland	$1,000,000	Up to 2 inches of rain fell during the day, causing a sinkhole to develop under a road in Woodinville and flooding several businesses in Kirkland. Freeway ramps were closed off of I-405 in Kirkland and there was ankle high water at intersections. A sinkhole also developed near a West Seattle home, flooding the basement. In Rainier Valley several businesses were flooded. Seattle Goodwill's downtown building suffered water damage.
July 2007	Lightning	Kirkland	$5,000	Lightning struck a home in Kirkland, causing minor damage.
September 2003	Heavy Rain	Kirkland	$5,000	no account filed
June 2008	Funnel Cloud	Kirkland	-	A funnel cloud was observed from the Seattle NWS forecast office.
October 2006	Funnel Cloud	Kirkland	-	no account filed
August 1997	Lightning	Kirkland	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in King County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
RELIEF (lightship)	under 500 feet	1975
VIRGINIA V	under 500 feet	1973
DUWAMISH	under 500 feet	1989
F/V Tordenskjold (West Coast Halibut Schooner)	under 500 feet	2023
SCHOONER MARTHA	under 500 feet	2001
MV WESTWARD (Wooden Motor Vessel)	under 500 feet	2007

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 89001078 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
King County	All 324 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.