09/06/09 - Week 142

Elmer Back and The Alma Lee

While I was at Newport, Oregon last weekend I got a chance to run up the Yaquina River and check on one of my favorite subjects.

I found this old boat about three years ago while I was exploring locations for landscape shots. Until last weekend I had no information about the boat as far as who it belonged to or why it ended up in the state that it is in. Thanks to a man standing on his front deck drinking his morning coffee I now have the story. Actually I have more of the story than he told me thanks to Google and the Internet.

This story is probably more about the man than about the boat but he did build it and he was one very interesting man from what I was told and what I have read.

Elmer built the Alma Lee in about 1957. The last registration plate I could find on it was 1979. It is named after Elmer's daughter. The boat was 42 feet long, before the stern rotted away, and was powered by a wood burning steam engine. Elmer painted her red, white and blue. I don't know where Elmer built the boat or how he got it into the river or the bay. I do know he lived up on the hill from where the remains of the boat now sit. He was friends with the people that owned the property across the road from where the boat is sitting and they let him keep the boat tied up there. The person that currently owns the place said he had heard about Elmer steaming up and down the river between Toledo and Newport but he had never seen the boat under power himself. He does remember Elmer coming down to the boat and painting and tinkering with it. He also told me but by this time Elmer was getting to be pretty old and a few years later Elmer had passed away.

Here is where searching on the internet comes into play. The information below comes from sources listed at the end of the story.

Elmer Back was born in Sandsvall, Sweden on March 2, 1906. He came to America in 1923 at the age of 17, and worked in sawmills in Bend.

He was known along the West Coast as the "Strong Man" performing for the Elks, Eagles and Moose Lodges as well as other gatherings in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and California. In 1934, he bent a piece of cable from the Golden Gate Bridge. For four years, he traveled with a carnival to perform his feats of strength.

In 1936, he moved to Toledo and went to work for C.D. Johnson Lumber. He performed regularly at Toledo's former Pioneer Days celebrations.

After World War II, he became a citizen of the United States. He married Sallie Rebeca Casey Austin in 1929. After his wife's death, he divided his time living in Sweden and Toledo.

Elmer Back, the West Coast's strongest man, died on March 25, 2000. He was 94 years old.

In 1997 The Eugene Register guard did a story about Elmer. At that time he was 91 years and still going strong. He took a 7 1/2 inch spike in his gloved right hand and pushed it through three one inch thick boards. He said in his younger years he could get them through five boards and blamed the fact that he had a cold for not being able to get it through four of them that day. The story and a photo of Elmer are in the news.google.com link below.

He really sounds like the kind of person I would like to have known.

For a few more photos of his boat you can look here.

news.google.com (This one is a good read for more information about Elmer)

Oregon History Online

Ancestry.com

I have started an Alaska 2010 web site here with current information on where we stand, where we will be going and what we will be doing. When we return from the site photos and such will be added after we get back like I did on the Alaska 2005 site.

Hope you enjoy the photo,

Mike