Editing Kalama, Washington (section)

==History==
Kalama was first settled by Native Americans, particularly members of the [[Cowlitz Indian Tribe|Cowlitz Indian Tribes]]. Others maintain that the town name is associated with John Kalama ({{Circa|1814|1870}}),<ref name="ReferenceA"/> a carpenter from the Hawaiian island of [[Maui]] who came to the Pacific Northwest on a fur-trading vessel in the 1830s. (The name "[[Kalama]]" also originates in the Hawaiian language and means "tree of ebony" or "the torch") <ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.meaningofthename.com/kalama | title=Meaning of the name Kalama }}</ref> John Kalama married a [[Nisqually tribe]] woman, Mary Martin, and worked on a farm repairing fish barrels, among other jobs. Mary died early and John remarried; he had a daughter about whom little is known and a son called Peter (1864–1947).

The first white settler recorded was in 1853. That first settler was [[Ezra Meeker]] and his family. Only one year later, Meeker moved to north [[Puyallup, Washington]], but he sold his Donation Land Claim to a Mr. John Davenport,<ref name="ReferenceA"/> who, with a few others, permanently settled in the Kalama area. In early 1870, [[Northern Pacific Railway]] scouts came to Cowlitz County to find an ideal terminus along the Columbia River. After a failed negotiation for a [[Donation Land Claim Act|Donation Land Claim]] in Martin's Bluff, {{Convert|4|mi|km}} south of Kalama, Northern Pacific officials purchased {{Convert|700|acre|ha}} in Kalama for the terminus of the new railroad as well as a new headquarters. The population swelled with employees of the Northern Pacific Railway.<ref name="historylink.org">{{Cite web|url=http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=9736|title=A group of Kalama residents meets to organize Port of Kalama on December 22, 1919}}</ref>
[[File:Main street in Kalama, Washington, November 8, 1900 (KIEHL 268).jpeg|thumb|left|Kalama in 1900]]

Kalama was entirely a Northern Pacific railroad creation. It was unofficially born in May 1870 when the Northern Pacific railroad turned the first shovel of dirt. Northern Pacific built a dock, a sawmill, a car shop, a roundhouse, a turntable, hotels, a hospital, stores, homes. In just a few months in 1870, the working population skyrocketed to approximately 3,500 and the town had added tents, saloons, a brewery, and a gambling hall. Soon the town had a motto: "Rail Meets Sail". Recruiters went to San Francisco and recruited Chinese labor, who moved to their own [[Chinatown]] in a part of Kalama now called China Gardens.<ref>Virginia Urrutia, ''They Came to Six Rivers: The Story of Cowlitz County'' (Kelso, WA: Cowlitz County Historical Society, 1998), pg. 93</ref> The population of Kalama peaked at 5,000 people, but in early 1874, the railroad moved its headquarters to Tacoma, and by 1877, only 700 people remained in Kalama.<ref name="historylink.org"/>

Kalama was unofficially incorporated on November 29, 1871.  It served as the county seat of Cowlitz County from 1872 to 1922.  Kalama was the northern terminus of a railroad ferry operated by the Northern Pacific Railway from [[Goble, Oregon]]. This was a critical link in rail service between 1883 when the service began until 1909 when the major rail bridges near [[Portland, Oregon|Portland]] across the Columbia and Willamette rivers were completed.<ref>http://www.brian894x4.com/LewisandClarkExplorer.html | Active Short lines in the Pacific Northwest</ref>

Kalama originated with a stake driven by Gen. John W. Sprague of the Northern Pacific Railway who in March 1870 selected a spot near the mouth of the Kalama river to mark the beginning point of Northern Pacific's Pacific Division.<ref name="arm">{{cite book
  | last =Armbruster
  | first = Kurt
  | title =Orphan Railroad: The railroad comes to Seattle, 1953&ndash;1911
  | publisher =Washington State University Press
  | year = 1999
  | location = Pullman, Washington
  | pages =27, 29, 44, 99
  | isbn = 0-87422-186-2}}</ref>   From that stake, the Northern Pacific began building north to [[Puget Sound]], ultimately reaching Commencement Bay at what was to become Tacoma before going bankrupt.  Construction began in April 1871 with a crew of 800 men, with the official 'first spike' being driven in May 1871<ref name="arm"/>   Scheduled service from Tacoma to Kalama began on January 5, 1874.<ref name="arm"/> The Portland-Hunters rail line in Oregon across the Columbia River from Kalama was completed in 1883 by Northern Pacific,<ref name="Grande">{{cite book | last=Grande| first=Walter| title=The Northwest's Own Railway: Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railway and its Subsidiaries - Volume 2 | year=1997 | publisher=Grande Press | page=11 | isbn=0-9634128-1-7 }}</ref> about the same time that the ceremonial spike was driven at a [[Northern Pacific Railroad Completion Site, 1883|site]] west of [[Helena, Montana]] to mark the completion of the transcontinental Northern Pacific Railroad in the fall of 1883.   The following year in October 1884, a 3 track, {{convert|360|ft|m|adj=on}} long railroad ferry, ''Tacoma,'' marked the beginning of about 25 years of ferry service across the [[Columbia River]].<ref name="arm"/>
Hunters<ref name="OGN">{{cite book
| last = McArthur
| first = Lewis A.
| author-link = Lewis A. McArthur
|author2=Lewis L. McArthur
|author2-link=Lewis L. McArthur
| title = [[Oregon Geographic Names]]
| orig-year = 1928
| edition = Sixth
| year = 1992
| publisher = [[Oregon Historical Society]] Press
| location = [[Portland, Oregon]]
| isbn = 0-87595-277-1
| pages = 431 }}</ref>  was located near the south end of Sandy Island about a mile south of Goble.   However the crossing times were excessive when the ''Tacoma'' had to work against the tide, and the ferry slip was soon moved to Goble at the north end of Sandy Island and directly across from Kalama. The ferry could handle 12 passenger cars or 27 freight cars.<ref name=arm/>

===Historic buildings===
[[File:St. Joseph's Catholic Parish, Kalama.jpg|thumb|upright|St. Joseph's Catholic Parish, Kalama]]
St. Joseph's Catholic Parish was built in 1874, around the same time the railroad between Kalama and [[Tacoma, Washington|Tacoma]] first became operational. This was the first and only Catholic parish in Kalama.