[From: The Pacific Railroad Preservation Association]
The Northern Pacific line from Tacoma to Kalama began service January 5, 1874 and included runs between Portland and Kalama by steamboat on the Willamette and Columbia Rivers.
On October 9 of 1884 - Northern Pacific puts the world's second largest ferry, the 338-ft. Steamboat Kalama (later renamed Tacoma), into service. The steamer was brought out from New York by the American ship Tillie E. Starbuck, her manifest showing the ferry-boat to consist of 57,159 separate pieces. She was put together at Portland and launched May 17th by Smith Brothers & Watson, and was handled on her trial trip by Capt. E.W. Spenser. She was first christened the Kalama but is now known as the Tacoma. Capt. George Gore was placed in command of the steamer, with Charles Gore, chief engineer, and that they are both still holding those positions is a high compliment to their ability as steamboatmen. Other members of the crew for several years past and present time are William Simpson and A.F. Hedges, pilots; John Larsen and Thomas Poppington, mates; William Lewis, Elias Vickers, Joseph Collyer and Michael O'Neill, engineers. The Tacoma's dimensions are: length, three hundred and thirty-eight feet; beam, forty-two feet; depth, eleven feet seven inches; engines, thirty-six by one hundred and eight inches."
Source: Lewis & Dryden's Marine History of the Pacific Northwest, edited by E.W. Wright, published by The Lewis & Dryden Printing Company, 1895, p.320.
http://columbiariverimages.com/Regions/Places/kalama_goble_ferry.html
It transported trains across the Columbia first from Hunters and later from Goble to Kalama, Washington from 1884 until 1908.
The trains are loaded in their entirety (engine and cars) onto the three-track ferry and taken across the river.
Sometime between 1891 and 1893 the Oregon slip was moved to Goble, which is where we landed.
Reporter and Clemens, Columbia River Ferry. Portland, Oregon August 9
Mark Twain Archive, Elmira College courtesy of Kevin Mac Donnell, Austin, Texas.
The Goble area was most likely a stop for the Lewis and Clark Expedition.[1]
First settled by Daniel B. Goble in 1853. He took up a donation land claim and later sold it to George S. Foster, who laid out a town and named it after Goble.
Goble had a post office from 1894 to 1960.[2]
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.[3]
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.
However the Northern Pacific Railroad was chartered to construct transcontinental railroad and telegraph lines between Lake Superior and Puget Sound[5] 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 7,000,000 acres (28,000 km2) of land grants unless they completed a line to Kalama "as far as practicable along the Oregon side of the Columbia River".[4]
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.[4]
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.[4]
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.[2]
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,[2] and Goble was platted in 1891.[3]