Mock is an extinct town in Spokane County, in the U.S. state of

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...

. The GNIS classifies it as a populated place. The community was named after W. C. Mock, a railroad official. The town was located along the defunct

Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway The Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railway (SP&S) was a railroad in the northwest United States. Incorporated in 1905, it was a joint venture by the Great Northern Railway and the Northern Pacific Railway to build a railroad along the north bank o ...

, the right-of-way of which is now the publicly accessible

Columbia Plateau Trail The Columbia Plateau State Park Trail is a , corridor in eastern Washington state maintained as part of the Washington State Park system. The rail trail runs along the abandoned right-of-way of the former Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway. ...

. The site is located in the Channeled Scablands about eight miles southwest of Cheney and just outside the eastern edge of

Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge The Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge is located six miles (10 km) south of Cheney, Washington, on the eastern edge of the Columbia Basin in Spokane County in northeastern Washington. Turnbull NWR encompasses more than of the Channeled Scab ...

. The community of

Amber, Washington Amber is an unincorporated community in Spokane County, Washington, United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. ...

is 4.8 miles southwest of Mock on the trail and another ghost town,

Rodna Rodna (formerly ''Rodna Veche''; hu, Óradna, Radna; german: Altrodenau) is a commune in Bistrița-Năsăud County, Transylvania, Romania. It is composed of two villages, Rodna and Valea Vinului (''Radnaborberek''). Its name is derived from a Sl ...

lies six miles beyond that. There are numerous lakes and ponds, almost all of which are oriented in a southwest-to-northeast direction due to the scouring erosion of the Missoula floods, in the area surrounding Mock. During the construction of the Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway, Mock was home to a labor camp for Italian laborers, contracted by Gabriel Ballante, to blast through

basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...

and build the railway. In 1906, the Italian laborers built a pair of rock ovens along the railway line to bake bread for sustenance during their labor. The rock ovens were listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1976.

References

Ghost towns in Washington (state) Geography of Spokane County, Washington {{SpokaneCountyWA-geo-stub