Gifford Ferry history by Bridgehunter.com

Thomas Stensgar came to the upper Columbia as an employee of the Hudson’s Bay Company. He began the ferry between Gifford and Inchelium in 1898 when the Colville Reservation was about to be opened for homesteading and prospecting by non-Indians. Shortly, after its inauguration the operation came under the control of mining promoters, J.S. Harrison and Frank Rail. Ivar Gifford took over in 1903 and named the Stevens County landing for his father, James.

The crossing was made by a cable ferry until 1938 when completion of Grand Coulee Dam widened the river, slowed its current and made operation of that type of vessel impractical. The barge was freed from her cable and pushed across the river by a tug until a diesel powered ferryboat, the first of two Miss Columbia’s, could be built in 1941.

The Columbian Princess, which began operating on the crossing in 1983, uses diesel engines to pull it along a submerged cable. The ferry is operated by the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation and is one of two remaining river ferries in eastern Washington. 

Source: Bridgehunter.com, Richard Doody