Oswego Lake and Tualatin River Sucker Lake, later called Oswego Lake, is a large lake south of Portland, about half the distance to Oregon City. (The current Oswego Lake is a larger version of the original lake, formed by a dam on the east end.) The Tualatin River is a tributary of the Willamette River, which runs near to the west end of Oswego Lake, which itself is tributary to the Willamette, draining easterly through Sucker Creek, now known as Oswego Creek. In 1865, John Corse Trullinger established a sawmill driven by an overshot waterwheel on Sucker Creek. At that time, road and other access to the Tualatin Valley was very difficult. The mouth of the Tualatin River was unnavigable, so it was necessary to portage around the Tualatin's mouth to get to a place where steamboats could run. Starting on May 29, 1865, a portage mule-hauled railroad on wooden tracks ran between the Tualatin River and Sucker Lake, a distance of about . This was called the Sucker Lake and Tualatin River Railroad. The main traffic was logs for Trullinger's mill on the east end of Sucker Lake. The steam sidewheel scow Yamhill, under Captain Edward Kellogg (brother of Joseph Kellogg), was then running on the Tualatin, as a replacement for the Hoosier. The owners of the railroad, together with the People's Transportation Company, decided to use the lake route and establish improved communications with the Tualatin Valley, and so, in the summer of 1866, they built the steamer Minnehaha at Oswego. Through the 1870s, Minnehaha ran on the lake, connecting to Colfax Landing at the west end. Traffic would there be portaged over to the Tualatin, where, starting in 1869, the small sternwheeler Onward, 100 tons, served points as far as upstream to head of navigation at Emerick's Landing. Onward made one trip up and one trip down the Tualatin every week. A trip from Portland on this route would begin at the Ash Street dock on Wednesday evening by boarding the Senator, bound for Oswego, where travelers would stay Wednesday night at Shade's Hotel. They would then board the Onward, proceed west down Sucker Lake, to the portage railroad at Colfax Landing. Mules or horses would draw wagons carrying the passengers and freight over to the Tualatin, where the travelers would reembark, and the cargo be reloaded, for points upstream. The return journey to Portland would be