New OPB film ‘The Wreck of the Brother Jonathan’ takes viewers aboard the ‘West Coast’s Titanic,’ unspooling the complicated history of a legendary steamship

New OPB film ‘The Wreck of the Brother Jonathan’ takes viewers aboard the ‘West Coast’s Titanic,’ unspooling the complicated history of a legendary steamship

June 9, 2026 – The first in-depth film to examine the “Titanic of the West Coast” – a notorious 1865 shipwreck near Crescent City, Calif. – launched this week by Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB). “The Wreck of the Brother Jonathan,” part of OPB’s “Oregon Experience” historical documentary series, digs into the questions that still surround the 220-foot steamship, which slammed into a nearly submerged rock and sank to the ocean floor about 20 mil…