Launched as the Fresno in 1927, the Willapa started life as a San Francisco Bay company for the Southern Pacific Railroad ferry system.

After plying San Francisco waters for over ten years, the new bridges over the Bay all but effectively ended ferry service across San Francisco Bay. Puget Sound Navigation, nearly always on the hunt for more vessels, purchased all six of the Steel Electric ferries from Southern Pacific to bolster their fleet and improve service. Starting in August of 1940, the ferries began traveling northward in twos. After the Fresno and Santa Rosa arrived, two others, the Mendocino and Lake Tahoe, were nearly lost en route during a December storm. PSN waited until spring to bring the last of the ferries, including by this time the City of Sacramento, the Shasta, San Mateo, and Napa Valley (Malahat) to Puget Sound.

The ferries immediately went into the yard at Eagle Harbor to be specially configured for the Bremerton run. Traffic on the route had increased, and although it wasn’t known at the time, with WWII about to start, the route would be like her near sister Enetai, the Willapa was extensively rebuilt. One wheelhouse removed. One rudder was welded into place, and the propeller removed. Her New London diesel-electric engines were removed and were replaced with one direct-drive Busch-Sulzer diesel, which gave both the Willapa and Enetai a speed of about 15 knots.

Her interior was expanded and the passenger cabin lengthened to the ends of the promanade deck. The wooden benches were removed, replaced by plushly padded, longer bench seats similar to those on the Kalakala. Both the Willapa and Enetai were intended to haul people: their passenger carring capacity increased from around 800 to nearly 1200.

The Willapa liked her new route; she didn’t leave the Bremerton run for nearly 25 years. During her many years on the run, her compainions were the silvery Kalakala, the distingushed former Great Lakes steamer Chippewa, and her sister Enetai. During the war years, two other ferries joined the route, the steamers Malahat and City of Sacramento.

After the war and the transfer to Washington State Ferries, the Willapa changed little in appearance. Like the others in the Steel Electric Class (which technically neither the Willapa or Enetai belonged to any more, having had their power plants changed), the large windows on the car deck from the San Francisco Bay days were welded in and replaced by open, round portholes.

Her conversion to a single-ended ferry by Black Ball was to spell the end of her service on Puget Sound. Initially, the Bremerton dock could only handle a single-ended ferry. By the 1960s, that was no longer true, and in addition, the aging Busch-Sulzer diesels were expensive to run and maintain. With the new Super Class ferries on the horizon, it was decided that after the first new ferry arrived, some of the most expensive to run vessels would be retired. When the Hyak arrived, the Kalakala and Willapa were put out of a job, both a victims of their high operating costs, low car carrying capacity, and speed. The Hyak could make ten trips to the Willapa’s five.