Goble is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

in Columbia County,

Oregon Oregon () is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idaho. T ...

, United States. It is located on

U.S. Route 30 U.S. Route 30 or U.S. Highway 30 (US 30) is an east–west main route in the system of the United States Numbered Highways, with the highway traveling across the northern tier of the country. With a length of , it is the third longest ...

and the Columbia River.

History

The Goble area was most likely a stop for the

Lewis and Clark Expedition The Lewis and Clark Expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery Expedition, was the United States expedition to cross the newly acquired western portion of the country after the Louisiana Purchase. The Corps of Discovery was a select gr ...

.Lewis & Clark's Columbia River - "200 Years Later": Goble, Oregon
Goble was first settled by Daniel B. Goble in 1853. He challenged a local turkey, coincidentally by the name of “goble”, to a duel over the town name. Until there was a railroad bridge built across the Columbia River at

Vancouver, Washington Vancouver is a city on the north bank of the Columbia River in the U.S. state of Washington, located in Clark County. Incorporated in 1857, Vancouver has a population of 190,915 as of the 2020 census, making it the fourth-largest city in Was ...

, Goble was the Oregon terminus for the

train ferry A train ferry is a ship (ferry) designed to carry railway vehicles. Typically, one level of the ship is fitted with railway tracks, and the vessel has a door at the front and/or rear to give access to the wharves. In the United States, train ...

Kalama, Washington Kalama (kaw-law-maw) is a city in Cowlitz County, Washington, United States. It is part of the Longview, Washington Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 2,959 as of the 2020 census. Etymology James W. Phillips' ''Washington State P ...

. Goble had a post office from 1894 to 1960. The history of the area is complicated because there are at five or six different community names applied to at least three locations in close proximity to each other all dating to about the same era. These names include: Hunters, Reuben, Goble, Mooreville, Red Town, Enterprise aka Enterprise Landing, and arguably Beaver Homes.Goble
The history of the area begins with the selection of Kalama, Washington, as the beginning point for the construction of the Pacific Division of the Northern Pacific Railroad in 1870. At least by 1879, there was a landing on the Oregon side of the Columbia River across from Kalama known as Enterprise Landing. Reuben was a post office name assigned to the location when a post office was sought in 1890 and it was found that the name Enterprise was already taken. The physical location is given to be about a mile south of the present day Goble. Reuben was named for the brother of the first postmaster, Reuben R. Foster. Scheduled Rail service of the Northern Pacific Railway from Tacoma to Kalama began on January 5, 1874. It connected to regular riverboat traffic on the Columbia River. However the Northern Pacific Railroad was chartered to construct transcontinental railroad and telegraph lines between Lake Superior and Puget Sound and completing the connection required a Portland to Kalama route. In 1877, Oregon Senator John Mitchell sponsored legislation calling for the Northern Pacific to forfeit of land grants unless they completed a line to Kalama "as far as practicable along the Oregon side of the Columbia River". The bill didn't pass congress, but on September 8, 1883, the Last spike was driven at Gold Creek, Montana to close the gap in the Rocky Mountain Division section of the Northern Pacific Railroad. A special train celebrating the opening of the transcontinental line arrived in Tacoma on September 13, 1883, which had traveled over the Portland-Hunters line. The Train Ferry Tacoma would go in service the following year. Hunters, being the railroad ferry site, was also the site of the first post office in the area called "Hunters", which was established May 29, 1888. Hunters was a location about two miles (3 km) south of present-day Goble, and was soon abandoned by the Northern Pacific Railroad in favor of a new ferry slip at Goble. There is no good record of when the move was made, but the Hunters post office was closed to Reuben in October 1893, and Goble was platted in 1891.

Train ferry

Before there was a railroad bridge between

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the list of cities in Oregon, largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, Columbia rivers, Portland is ...

and Vancouver, Washington, Goble was the site of an important train ferry.Washington Secretary of State, History of Washington: Cowlitz County
/ref> The Northern Pacific Railroad had built a railroad on the Oregon side of the Columbia River to Goble. In the 1880s, the company bought the second largest ferry in the world and shipped it to Oregon. In order to ship the ferry, crews disassembled it into 57,159 pieces and shipped it around

Cape Horn Cape Horn ( es, Cabo de Hornos, ) is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island. Although not the most southerly point of South America (which are the Diego Ramí ...

. The ferry, named ''The Tacoma'', was reassembled in Portland and it transported trains across the Columbia first from Hunters and later from Goble to Kalama, Washington from 1884 until 1908.

Economy

In the 1890s, Goble was a

boomtown A boomtown is a community that undergoes sudden and rapid population and economic growth, or that is started from scratch. The growth is normally attributed to the nearby discovery of a precious resource such as gold, silver, or oil, although ...

, supported by logging, the wood-fired Columbia River steamboats that stopped there for refueling, and as many as six trains that stopped in the community daily on the way to

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

.Goble Tavern
/ref> Today there are few businesses remaining in Goble, but the Goble Tavern remains open. While Rainier is most often cited as the home of the

Trojan Nuclear Power Plant Trojan Nuclear Power Plant was a pressurized water reactor nuclear power plant (Westinghouse design) in the northwest United States, located southeast of Rainier, Oregon, and the only commercial nuclear power plant to be built in Oregon. There w ...

, it is actually closer to Goble and Prescott.

Points of interest

Goble is home to the Goble Caves and other unique geological formations that produce rare crystals. Two types of

Zeolite Zeolites are microporous, crystalline aluminosilicate materials commonly used as commercial adsorbents and catalysts. They mainly consist of silicon, aluminium, oxygen, and have the general formula ･y where is either a metal ion or H+. These p ...

, called Tschernichite and Boggsite, were first discovered in Goble.Billy Bob's page about Goble, Oregon
Deer Island, an uninhabited Columbia River island where Lewis and Clark stopped in 1805 and 1806, lies in the Columbia River upstream from Goble. The community of Deer Island is nearby on the Oregon side of the mainland.

References

External links