Wreck of the Czarina - January 12, 1910

Nellie Bernitt's post card to Will Kolm at Myrtle Point, postmarked January 14, 1910, is a photo of the steamer Czarina stranded on the Coos Bay bar and being torn apart by the pounding sea. It was taken just two days earlier, on 12 January 1910. In the foreground people are standing on the beach helplessly watching the tragedy. This was part of life on the Oregon coast in the early 20th century. The lifesaving boat was unable to get to the wreck, and it was too far away for the line-throwing gun ashore to reach its decks. The 220-foot iron ship was headed from Marshfield to San Francisco with a load of coal, when Captain C.J. Dugan attempted to cross the bar in the face of a severe storm. The bar was treacherous and departing ships often waited at Empire, just inside the entrance to Coos Bay, until tidal and weather conditions were right.

The second post card is one that Will sent to his brother Fred W. Kolm in Schuyler, Nebraska on January 21, 1910. It is an enlarged view of the ship showing silhouettes of the 24 crew members and one passenger who had lashed themselves to the masts and shrouds, as the hull and entire upperworks of the steamer were swept by the breakers. By morning only 5 crew members and the passenger were still alive in the rigging of the one remaining mast. One by one they dropped into the sea as people continued to helplessly watch from the beach. Will tells Fred that "only one man was saved. The heavy seas carried away her bridge, her lifeboats, and the water put out her fires. I was agent for her and the Breakwater." The passenger (who was lost) was 20-year old Harold Millis, son of C.J. Millis, the general manager for the steamship line at Marshfield and general manager of the Coos Bay, Roseburg & Eastern Railroad. Harold was returning to his studies at the University of California at Berkeley after spending the holidays with his parents in Marshfield.

The third post card, postmarked May 28, 1910, was sent by Nellie to Will at Schuyler, Nebraska just before they were married. The photo shows all that was left of the Czarina in the surf.

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