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• Goble Tavern

Oregon State Archives - A 1940 Journey Across Oregon

GOBLE, 40.6 m. [West of Portland] (48 alt., 75 pop.), (25 alt., 91 pop.), is at the former landing of the Northern Pacific Railway Ferry at Kalama, Washington, before the building of the railroad bridge between Vancouver and Portland.

The original CRH is now used as a driveway by the same structures seen in the 1930s photo.

Lyn Topinka, ColumbiaRiverImages.com: Goble, Oregon

According to "Oregon Geographic Names" (2003, McArthur and McArthur):

"Goble (COLUMBIA) ... This place was first settled by Daniel B. Goble in April 1853. He took up a donation land claim and later sold it to George S. Foster, who laid out the town and named it for the previous owner. Goble was born in Ohio in 1815 and arrived in Oregon in August 1852. His land office certificate was numbered 4157. Before the railroad bridge was built across the Columbia River at Vancouver, Goble was the Oregon terminus for the trains ferry to the Washington side at Kalama. Goble post office operated from 1894 to 1960."

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management's General Land Office (GLO) Records database, shows Daniel B. Goble being granted title to 172.4 acres for parts of T6N R2W Section 12, on October 15, 1873 (1850 "Oregon-Donation Act").

The 1856 cadastral survey (tax survey) for T6N R2W shows "Coffin Rock" in Section 2, the "Gobal" homestead in Section 12, and "Sandy Isd." upstream of Goble in the middle of the Columbia River.

The 1888 nautical chart "Columbia River, Sheet No.4, Grim's Island to Kalama", has Sandy Island labeled as "Sandy I.", and shows it directly across from the Washington town of "Kalama". Just downstream on the Oregon side is "Gobles Pt.".

Eventually Daniel Goble sold his land to George Foster, who laid out a town and named it Goble. The Goble Post Office operated between 1894 and 1960.

From the 1909 NOAA "Coast Pilot":

"... Between Astoria and Portland there are numerous landings and settlements, dependent either on the fisheries or acting in some cases as shipping points for the country immediately behind them; these are ports of call for the regular river steamers. Deep-draft vessels do not as a rule stop between Astoria and Portland, except for lumber cargoes at Rainier, Goble, Westport, Knappton, and some small mills. …"

...in 1890, the tracks were completed to Goble.

Clarence E. Mershon, The Columbia River Highway: From the Sea to the Wheat Fields of Eastern Oregon, 2006

The Oregon slip was moved to Goble in 1890. Tacoma could ferry up to 21 box or passenger cars as well as a "road" and a switch engine. Regular service between Kalama and Goble continued from 1890 to 1908, when the Northern Pacific's railroad bridge across the Columbia River connected Vancouver, Washington and points north with Portland.

Michael C. Taylor, Road of Difficulties: Building the Lower Columbia River Highway

Once a significant, bustling city on the lower Columbia River, Goble was the location of the railroad ferry to Kalama, the only way trains could connect by rail to the Puget Sound before the Interstate Bridge was built.

Little remains of the cluster of buildings, the waterfront, taverns, schoolhouse, and Redman Dance Hall that once stood here. The Goble Tavern and store aren't what they used to be.

By the 1880s, Portland and St. Helens had welcomed the rail, but cities farther west were still isolated. When Goble finally got a line from Portland in 1890, it happened because the connection was of benefit to both cities.

…

In 1898, after years of negotiation, Astoria finally completed a railroad line connecting the coast with Goble...

Goble's role as a rail transit hub lasted only twenty-five years. In 1908, railroad magnet and "empire builder" James J. Hill finally bridged the Columbia River between Portland and Vancouver.

Lyn Topinka, ColumbiaRiverImages.com: Ferry … Kalama, Washington, to Goble, Oregon

Both a train ferry and a passenger ferry existed between Goble, Oregon, and Kalama, Washington... The passenger ferry existed between 1908 (presumably) and 1934.

…

A passenger ferry existed between Kalama and Goble during the first half of the 1900s, to allow railroad passengers from Tacoma and Seattle heading to Astoria to avoid having to travel into Portland and then back up the Oregon side of the Columbia.

According to "The Sunday Oregonian", July 9, 1922 (Historic Oregon Newspaper Archives, University of Oregon Libraries, 2016):

"... The Goble-Kalama ferries, by the way, operate 24 hours a day on 15-minute schedule, so that there is virtually no delay in making the crossing."

Excerpt from: Clarence E. Mershon's "The Columbia River Highway", 2006:

"... Martin Horan started a ferry service and Jack Reid converted a couple of fishing boats to carry passengers between Goble and Kalama so the Astoria to Puget Sound passengers could avoid the "loop" through Portland. Reid soon put a 100-passenger ferry, Queen, into service and, in 1923, after the highway was completed, put Elf which carried automobiles and freight, into service. Ferry service terminated in 1934 after completion of the Rainier-Longview bridge ended the need for the Goble-Kalama "transfer" business. ..."

The 1942 NOAA "Coast Pilot" states:

"... Kalama, on the eastern bank, is an occasional stop for ocean-going vessels to pick up lumber. There is a ferry between Kalama, and Goble on the western bank. ..."

Mrs. Ervin Abraham, "Of Once-Booming Hamlet of Goble," The Oregonian, January 3, 1966

GOBLE (Special) -- About 35 miles from Portland, a motorist driving west along State Highway 30 will not even slow as he passes a tavern and a combined gas station-garage-store. The somnolent wide spot is Goble, a hamlet which has been fading slowly from Oregon's memory for almost a half century, but which still hopes to recapture it brawling vitality of yore.

Once upon a time, Goble was indeed brawling. It was way back around the turn of the century, beyond the memories of most persons. But one person remembers. She is Mrs. Bella Metcalf, 78, the daughter of Oregon pioneer Simon Abraham Neer.

The Neer came to Columbia County in 1852, when Oregon was still a frontier territory. Simon Neer took out a Donation Land claim and plotted Neer City in August, 1883. Later in 1896 Goble was plotted by pioneer George Foster and was named after Daniel Goble, the Ohio trapper who staked first claim to the city. The same year, a creek separating the two frontier towns was named Goble Creek. And later in 1896, one Reuben Foster, perhaps a relative of George Foster, founded Reuben. Thus, the hamlets were born.

Today, Reuben does not exist and Neer City is an unnoticed speck on the map. But that is in 1965.

In 1890's, Goble, Neer City, and Reuben were boisterous and booming. The railroad, which poked eastward, through Goble and Kalama, Washl, across the Columbia River helped. It drew jobs and people and eliminated, Mrs Metcalf recalls, the need to bring the mail from Kalama by rowboat. Later, the three communities got their own post office, first located on a scow and later in a store owned by Neer City resident Dick Link. As time passed, Neer City's population swelled to 100. In Goble, as many as six trains daily stopped on their run to Seattle. The biggest spurs to growth; however, were* timber and steam.

Steam boats plying the Columbia River required fuel, and the huge stands of native timber surrounding the three communities made them a natural fueling station. Lumber Supported

Two camps populated by several hundred loggers sprung up amidst the virgin timber stands. During the week, the lumberjacks labored mightily, just as legend says. And on Saturday night, bathed and shaved, they headed for town to round up an illegal jug and weekend action. The favorite hangout was the Red Men Lodge Hall, when the loggers spent the night dancing to trots, and two-steps and only occasionally brawling. Everything was first-class at Red Men Lodge, even the bands, which were often "imported" from Portland. Other bands were brought in from Clatskanie and elsewhere. Dr. J. L. Cook of Rainier can remember the Red Men dances, for he was a drummer in the Clatskanie group while working this way through dental school.

Legend notwithstanding, the dances generally went smoothly. The usual action occurred sometime during the evening when some besotten logger took a header down the long flight of stairs leading to the lodge. Old timers to Goble still remember the infrequent brawls which helped loggers build their hardy reputations.

Reaching back into the past, Mrs. Metcalf recalled the night when two belligerent lumberjacks were hauled caulked boots and all, in to the hoosegow by the lodge bouncer. Placed in the pokey for safe-keeping, the loggers escaped during the night by clawing through the jail's wooden floor with their "cork" boots.

Gradually, however, the boom diminished. River boats, trains and loggers began to move on, abandoning Goble's hotel, two mills, boarding house, barber shops, hardware store, two general stores, church, school, and lamentably, the Red Men Lodge Hall. Even the town's cold storage plant, where frozen fisher were packed for export, closed.

The post office in Neer City was transferred to Goble. And in 1923, the post office shut up shop permanently. The hardwood floor from the lodge hall was torn up and relaid in the 80-year-old home of Mrs. Metcalf's daughter, Mrs. Dave Easter. Fire and wreckers claimed other homes. The present swallowed the past and the three communities which belonged to it. But the memories remain - vividly for Mrs. Metcalf.

The brightest one is of the terrible storm of 1894. She was a girl then, just seven years old. She remembers the storm had struck and the Columbia River was running widly at flood stage. With her mother, Mrs. Metcalf went to a bluff a short distance from their Neer City home to catch a glimpse of the Iraida, a Rainier stern wheeler making a daily trip between Portland and Rainier. While walking to the bluff, the cyclone struck, ripping and clawing the earth. Rain fell in sheets, thunder shook the sky and lightning stabbed through the black clouds. Cottenwood trees toppled over in swaths as if uprooted by a bulldozer. Deep-rooted firs were toppled by the force of the wind. At the bluff, mother and daughter saw a huge swell rolling up the Columbia toward the Iraida. It picked up the stern wheeler, lifted it out of the river and dropped it on the railroad track running along the bank. A second later a second giant swell plucked the river boat of the tracks, returning it to the river. Back at home, buckets were used to bail the rain water out of their home.

For Goble, though, the day of the great storm, hard drinking loggers and river boat prosperity are gone. Nonetheless, the hamlet continues to mull its past even as it eyes the future. Columbia County is growing, and Goble hopes some of it will rub off. Obviously, with such a nostalgic history, the town does not want to be just another Oregon memory.

Links

ColumbiaRiverImages.com: Goble, Oregon

Includes ... Goble ... Goble Landing ... Goble Point ... Goble's Point ... Campsite of March 27, 1806 ... Elder Rocks ... Centennial Queen ... River Queen ... S.S. Shasta ... Kalama-Goble Ferry ... Hunters, Oregon ... Hunter Bar ... Reuben ... Enterprise ...

http://columbiariverimages.com/Regions/Places/goble.html

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