History of Kalama
Kalama has a unique and eclectic history. Originally settled by a Hawaiian, John Kalama, the town became one of the largest communities in Washington and Oregon Territories. The Northern Pacific Railway established the community of Kalama as the western terminus of the cross continental rail system.
The present day City of Kalama was born in 1870 when the Northern Pacific turned the first shovel of dirt. The town was officially named in 1871 by General John Sprague, an agent for the Northern Pacific Railway Company. Sprague adopted the same name as the Kalama River that runs through the area just to the north of town.
John Kalama
John Kalama was born in Kula, Maui in 1811. To leave the islands of his native Hawaii and to find a new life along the Northwest Coast of America, John Kalama joined a fur-trading vessel returning to the Hudson’s Bay Company. Foreign laborers recruited by Hudson’s Bay included Brits and Scots, Iroquois Indians from Canada and Pacific Islanders. By 1846, Hawaiians made up half of the Hudson’s Bay workforce. John Kalama arrived in the Pacific Northwest around 1830.
His trade took him to the Big Long Smoke House on Muck Creek near present-day Yelm. There he met and married Mary Martin, one of five daughters of Indian Martin, chief of the Nisqually tribe in southern Puget Sound.
1830 is the year given by some that Kalama was first settled by John Kalama. At some point, he and his wife lived at the mouth of the river which now bears his name, the Kalama River.
John and Mary had one son, Peter Kalama born in 1860. When Peter was about seven years old, Mary died and Peter went to live with other members of the Nisqually tribe. John Kalama married a second time and had a daughter, but there are no known records of this second child. John died around 1870, just as the Northern Pacific Railroad teams arrived and the town was platted.
Northern Pacific Railroad
Near the present day location of the Kalama Marina, on March 19, 1871, the Northern Pacific Railroad began construction of the first mainline rails in the northwestern United States.
Kalama was selected because NP engineers determined it was down-river from winter river ice, the Columbia River channel depth was the same as at the river’s bar at Astoria, and it was close to Portland and the Willamette Valley.
The railroad would go northerly down the Columbia River, follow portions of the Cowlitz River, and then on northward toward Puget Sound. At that point in time, the Puget Sound terminus was undetermined.
When Tacoma was finally selected as the NP’s western terminus, final track alignments were determined near the Nisqually River and track work was completed into Tacoma on December 27, 1873.
The first regularly scheduled trains between Kalama and Tacoma began January 5, 1874. The Northern Pacific Railroad staff overcame many serious challenges during this time, including a huge landslide and serious financial problems just as the rail approached Tacoma.
This western rail would ultimately connect with work started on February 15, 1870 near Carlton, Minnesota, creating a transcontinental line across the northern portion of the United States.
It would be hard to overstate the long-term economic, social, and even strategic importance of this Northern Pacific Railroad route… which started east in Kalama.
The Labor to Build the Northern Pacific Railroad
Two hundred and fifty men from Scotland, Ireland, Sweden and Germany joined 700 Chinese laborers when construction started in Kalama.
Unskilled white workers were paid $2 per day; Chinese $1. Mechanics made $3 and gang foremen were paid $70 per month.
The Chinese lived apart from white workers in a Chinatown – a section of Kalama known as China Garden.
Little remains of the Chinese presence in Kalama, though the road that lead to this area still bears the name.
The Tacoma Ferry
The rail line between Kalama and Portland was not completed until 1908. When trains needed to travel south of Kalama, they crossed the Columbia River on a huge, steam-powered ferry, and then continued on their way along the western side of the river.
Originally called the Kalama, this ferry was built in Wilmington, Delaware for a staggering $400,000 price tag. When it was completed in 1883, it was the second largest ferry in the world.
An entire train, consisting of 23 freight cars or 15 passenger cars and two engines was able to fit on its deck. It stretched 338 feet long and ran 76 feet wide. It was powered by two 500hp steam engines which turning two side paddles, each standing 29 feet high.
It could cross the river in about 20 minutes. Renamed the Tacoma, it began regular runs between Kalama and Goble, Oregon on October 9, 1884.
The completion of a railroad bridge between Vancouver and Portland made the Tacoma obsolete, and it made its last run on December 25, 1908. It was decommissioned and began work as a freight barge. On January 12, 1950 it collided with a ship and sank in Seattle’s Elliot Bay. Hand-placed rip rap from the ferry terminal still exists on the riverbank just north of the Port of Kalama marina.
Cowlitz County Seat
In 1872, Kalama was voted the new county seat as it became an important transportation center with construction of a north-south railway connecting Vancouver to Tacoma.
With the County Seat, came the First County Jail and in 1892 the first of three hangings in Cowlitz County before the state took responsibility of the hangings in 1904.
The Kazana House served as the county courthouse from 1876 to 1922. The current county seat, Kelso, was selected in 1922.