Goble, Oregon

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. (help, get involved!)
Any material not supported by sources may be challenged and removed at any time. This article has been tagged since June 2006.

Goble is a small unincorporated community in Columbia County, Oregon, United States. It is located along U.S. Highway 30 along the Columbia River approximately 30 mi (48 km) north NNW of Portland, at approximately Milepost 41. Goble was most likely a stop for the Lewis and Clark expedition^{[citation needed]}. It is home to the Goble Moorage, the now-abandoned Goble Store, the former Goble Elementary School, which no longer serves as a public school, Goble Creek, Charles W. Chapman Quarry (Chapman Quarry), Goble Falls, the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant, which has been decommissioned and is pending demolition, (the cooling tower was demolished May 21, 2006), Goble Caves, other unique geological formations that produce rare crystals, and an uninhabited Columbia River island. Goble Tavern remains open for business.

In April 1853, Daniel Goble from Ohio filed a donation land claim along the banks of the Columbia River. In 1890, George S Foster and his wife Eliza laid out plans on thirty acres upon which the town of Goble would grow. Goble became one of many tiny communities that dotted the Lower Columbia Basin throughout the second half of the 1800s. By the 1880s, five separate communities sprang up around Goble, including the settlements Neer City in 1883, Rueben in 1891, Beaver Homes in 1902, and Kalama, on the Washington Territory side of the Columbia.

On October 15, 1884 the first train pulled into Hunter’s Landing, a ferry service opposite Kalama. The railroad put Goble on the map and its place as an important waypoint along the Northern Pacific railroad was established. The ferry boat Tacoma carried train cars across the river, establishing rail service from Portland to Seattle. The ferry ran from October 9, 1884 until Christmas Day, 1908 when a railroad bridge was opened between Portland and Vancouver, Washington. Passenger and automobile ferries functioned out of Goble until the construction of the Lewis and Clark Bridge between Rainier, Oregon and Longview, Washington in 1934. The ferries obsolete, Goble’s role as a transportation hub subsided and its importance to the outside world all but disappeared. The little town quietly faded into obscurity.