In 1920, Edgar Horner (1888-1974), who had lived in Oregon since his family emigrated from England in 1906, moved with his wife and children to Long Beach, California, where he worked as a carpenter. In the summer of 1921, he returned to Oregon to collect furniture and personal belongings. He then booked a journey back to California on the steamship Alaska, which crashed into Blunt's Reef off the coast of Cape Mendocino, California, and sank. Horner was one of the shipwreck's survivors.

Sources: Allen, Cain, "Edgar Horner and the Wreck of the Alaska," Oregon Historical Quarterly, Vol. 102, No. 1 (Spring 2001); vital records on Ancestry.com.

On August 5, 1921, the S.S. Alaska, a passenger steamship chartered by the San Francisco and Portland Steamship Company, left Portland, Oregon, for San Francisco, California, stopping at Astoria, Oregon, to pick up additional passengers.

On the evening of August 6, the Alaska struck Blunt's Reef off the coast of Cape Mendocino, and sank. The steamships Anyox and Wahkeena heeded the Alaska's S.O.S. call and picked up survivors, whom they brought to Eureka, California. Of the 220 total passengers and crew, 31 passengers and 11 crew died in the shipwreck. A number of those who died were from Portland or elsewhere in Oregon.

Sources: Articles in the Oregonian and Oregon Journal, August 1921; Allen, Cain, "Edgar Horner and the Wreck of the Alaska," Oregon Historical Quarterly, Vol. 102, No. 1 (Spring 2001), pages 72-85; Annual Report of the Supervising Inspector General, Steamboat Inspection Service, to the Secretary of Commerce for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1922.