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Vicinity of Castle Rock, Oregon.
View from driving west on Interstate 84 looking towards the area where Castle Rock, Oregon, use to be. The Columbia River is just barely visible as strip of blue on the right. The hills of Washington State are in the background.
Image taken October 2, 2006.
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Castle Rock ...
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Historic Castle Rock, Oregon, is located at Columbia River Mile (RM) 262, across from Crow Butte, Washington and downstream from Canoe Ridge. Upstream is the Oregon city of Boardman, and downstream is Willow Creek and another railway station Heppner Junction.
The community of Castle Rock was named after a basalt feature which lay along the Columbia River at RM 261. The community was located southeast of the rock.
The Castle Rock area was inundated by the waters of Lake Umatilla, the reservoir behind the John Day Dam.
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Early Castle Rock ...
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Castle Rock, as well as nearby Coyote, Willows, and Umatilla, were registered by the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company (O. R. & N. Co.) in 1881 and the town was platted in 1883. The Castle Rock Post Office came into existence in August 1883, along with a newspaper called the "Castle Rock Record". Businesses included sheep ranching, the Castle Rock Warehouse, and the Castle Rock Lumber Co. The community also was a steamboat landing and a stage coach stop. The demise of Castle Rock began when the railroad built further inland. At the turn of the century the nearby community of Boardman began developing. In 1926 the Castle Rock Post Office closed.
According to McArthur and McArthur in "Oregon Geographic Names" (2003, Oregon Historical Society):
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Castle Rock ... was a low bluff said to resemble a castle from the river. This formation as well as the old railroad and highway grades were inundated by Lake Umatilla behind John Day Dam. The 1881 railroad station was Castle Rock, and a post office with that name operated from 1883 to 1926.
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In William Henry Gray's writings (1870):
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"... At the end of the railroad the steamboat receives the traveler, when, as he ascends the river, the land on either side diminishes in height, till he reaches Castle Rock, seventy-one miles above the Dalles. This is a lone pile of basaltic rocks having the appearance of an old castle in the midst of a great plain to the east, south, and west of it.
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[Gray, 1870]
The Castle Rock area was inundated by the waters of Lake Umatilla, the reservoir behind the John Day Dam.
The railroad station at this location today is known as "Castle". Views of the location of this now vanished community can be seen from Interstate 84 west of Boardman, or from the Washington side of the Columbia downstream of Crow Butte. Electrical transmission towers cut through the area.
Castle Rock is located in Morrow County, T4N, R24E, Section 8.
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William Henry Gray, 1870 ...
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The Dalles to Walla Walla
"From the Dalles [The Dalles, Oregon] we ascend this mighty river fourteen miles by rail, where the water has worn its crooked course amid solid basaltic rocks to unknown depths, not exceeding a hundred and fifty feet in width, causing the river, in discharging its annual floods, to rise at this point over eighty feet in perpendicular height.
At the end of the railroad the steamboat receives the traveler, when, as he ascends the river, the land on either side diminishes in height, till he reaches Castle Rock [Castle Rock, Oregon], seventy-one miles above the Dalles. This is a lone pile of basaltic rocks having the appearance of an old castle in the midst of a great plain to the east, south, and west of it. ...
Twenty-five miles above Castle Rock stands the thriving little town of Umatilla [Umatilla, Oregon], at the mouth of the river of the same name [Umatilla River], and nine miles above is Windmill Rock [quite possibly today's Hat Rock]. In ascending the river fifteen miles from this place, the land on either side rises to some fifteen hundred feet above the level of the river which occupies the entire bottom from rocks to rocks on either side; when the land suddenly drops from this high plain which extends from the Blue Mountains [Blue Mountains] on the east to the Cascade range on the west, forming, as it were, a great inland dam across the Columbia River, fifteen hundred feet high at the place where the river has broken through the dam [Wallula Gap]. As you pass out of this gap, in looking to the north and east, the eye rests upon another vast, high, rolling plain, in the southeastern part of which lies the beautiful valley of the Wallawalla [Walla Walla River] . At the upper or eastern end was situated the Whitman or Cayuse Mission. Some six miles above is the flourishing town of Wallawalla.
The most of this vast, high, rolling plain, and especially the valleys, have more or less of alkali soil; the high plains are similar to those we have just passed, -- destitute of all kinds of timber, except at the foot of the mountains, and small patches of willow and cotton-wood, in some little nook or corner, near some spring or stream."
Source:
William Henry Gray, 1870,
A History of Oregon, 1792-1849, drawn from personal observation and
authentic information, by W.H. Gray, of Astoria,
published in Portland, Oregon.
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Early Maps ...
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1906 Topographic map detail, showing Crow Butte and Canoe Ridge, Washington, and Castle Rock, Oregon.
Also showing the Columbia River and the "Canoe Encampment Rapids".
Original map 1:125,000 "Blalock Island Quadrangle", Washington-Oregon, U.S. Geological Survey, 1906 edition.
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Castle Rock in 1940 ...
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From the Oregon State Archives "A 1940 Journey Across Oregon":
"...CASTLE ROCK .... (241 alt., 10 pop.), once a busy community, now is a
station on the railroad edging an empty plain. The magazine West Shore for
October, 1883, records: "Castle Rock. . . . now contains an express
office, post office, saloons, dwellings, schools, etc . . . The growth of
western towns is wonderful." ..."
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Views ...
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Vicinity of Castle Rock, Oregon.
View from driving east on Interstate 84 looking towards the area where Castle Rock, Oregon, use to be. The Columbia River is just barely visible as strip of blue. The hills of Washington State's Crow Butte are in the background.
Image taken September 29, 2006.
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Click image to enlarge
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Vicinity of Castle Rock, Oregon.
View from Tower Road looking towards the area where Castle Rock, Oregon, use to be. The Columbia River is just barely visible at the base of Crow Butte in the distance.
Image taken September 24, 2004.
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Castle Rock, Oregon, etc.
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- Castle Rock to Crow Butte Ferry ...
- Three Castle Rocks ...
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Castle Rock to Crow Butte Ferry ...
Three Castle Rocks ...
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Besides the historic Castle Rock, Oregon, two other Castle Rocks were noticed by early river travelers. Downstream 120 miles on the Washington side is Beacon Rock, known as "Castle Rock" until 1916. Seventeen miles up the Cowlitz River (merging with the Columbia at RM 68) is located Castle Rock, Washington, today a thriving community.
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From the Journals of Lewis and Clark ...
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Clark, October 20, 1805 ...
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