Connection to the Pacific Ocean by way of the Siuslaw River made Florence a natural hub for industry, but the shifting river channel and mouth made early navigation unpredictable and made a thriving harbor difficult to establish. Transporting goods up and down the river was aided by construction of the North and South Jetties, which began in the early 1890s with assistance from the Army Corps of Engineers and federal funding, then stalled as funds were exhausted before being revived by the formation of the Port District in 1909 and the River and Harbor Bill of 1910; with community support, the harbor was improved and the jetties were completed in 1917. The first cargo ship to cross the bar at the Siuslaw River was the S.S. Alexander Duncan in 1877, traveling upriver to the Duncan Cannery with machinery, livestock, plants, supplies, and the Duncan family organ, and in the following years several ships frequented the Florence area carrying goods to and from canneries along the river, with tugboats aiding cargo vessels supporting the mills and canneries. The Siuslaw River was also the main mode of transportation in the Siuslaw Valley as settlement was established, and ferry travel crossed the river between Florence and Glenada on a diagonal route whose old landings can still be seen on either side. As the Oregon Coast Highway System developed, ferry traffic increased drastically and the ferries could not keep up; the first ferry on the Siuslaw River began in 1885 under ex-Norwegian sea captain Harry Olson, and the Tourist I, transferred from service on Coos Bay in 1929, replaced the previous vessel and operated as the Florence-Glenada Ferry until the Siuslaw River Bridge was completed in 1936.