Castle Rock, Oregon: The Columbia River Shipping Town Lake Umatilla Swallowed

01A Castle on the Columbia: How Castle Rock Got Its Name

The community took its name from a landmark on the river: a low bluff that looked like a castle from the water, a rock formation about 40 feet high, the settlement sitting about a mile from it. A Morrow County heritage panel calls it a lava formation. Whatever its precise form, travelers on the Columbia saw a castle-like shape rising above the shore.

The place was known to travelers well before it had a town. According to Jerry Peck's local history, a wagon train of 13 families camped at Castle Rock in 1847, and their livestock was stampeded. Peck gives no source for the story. By one account, in the 1870s the site was a steamboat landing used by people from the Heppner area.

The town itself began on paper. On January 1, 1881, the railroad registered stations at Castle Rock, Coyote, Willows and Umatilla in anticipation of construction. A sheep ranch was established in 1882. The O.R.&N. built across north Morrow County in November 1882, according to the Morrow County timeline. Other accounts date the depot and line to 1881 or to spring 1883, so the exact arrival of the rails is uncertain. The post office opened on August 3, 1883.

02Wool, Wheat and a Ferry: The Business of Castle Rock, Morrow County

Castle Rock mattered because it was where the high-desert interior met the river. Wheat, wool and livestock from as far south as the Blue Mountains were hauled to Castle Rock, and merchandise came back the other way, according to Yesteryears of Morrow County. Freight rolled from Castle Rock to Heppner. Castle Rock was also a stagecoach stop, with horses changed at Ella. The Morrow County heritage panel describes it as a major rail and water shipping point for the county, with a ferry carrying hay across to the Washington side.

Local histories name some of the people who made it work. Thomas Ayers of Heppner and Theron Fell of Castle Rock built a warehouse for wool and wheat. W. H. Herren was running a general store by 1883, and the timeline lists Daniels & Herren operating the Castle Rock Lumber Co. that December. The timeline also records a newspaper, the Castle Rock Record, on June 24, 1883. That is the only mention found, and the paper itself has not been seen.

The place had a school and telephone service. In 1888 the first telephone line in Morrow County ran from Castle Rock across the north end of the county, then through Ella and Blackhorse Canyon to Heppner. Castle Rock and Boardman shared School District 25.

An October 1883 description in West Shore magazine, quoted at second hand, lists an express office, a post office, dwellings and a school. The two secondary sources word it slightly differently. One adds saloons. A separate account, which cites no source, lists a much larger "peak" settlement in the early 1900s. It includes a depot, hotel, school, saloon, livery and stage stable, real estate office, two grain warehouses, a store with the post office, and an agricultural implement factory. That list should be read cautiously, because other histories describe a town already shrinking by then.

03What Happened to Castle Rock?

The railroad that created Castle Rock also undid it. In October and November 1888, the O.R.&N. built up Willow Creek to Heppner, "taking business away from Castle Rock," in the words of the timeline. The Castle Rock warehouse moved to Ione in 1889. Peck writes that business dwindled over the next couple of decades until only the general store and post office remained.

Boardman took over the role. Sam Boardman, later Oregon's State Parks Superintendent, learned of government land on the Columbia from the Castle Rock storekeeper and homesteaded there in 1903. The Boardman townsite was platted in 1916, and by 1917, according to the county heritage panel, Boardman had replaced the Castle Rock freight station. Castle Rock fought the change. John Marshall, who owned the store and post office, and the railroad sued School District 25 over new school construction in Boardman, which delayed it by about a year. Sam Boardman was elected to the Castle Rock school board on June 16, 1913, and later moved the old Castle Rock school building to Boardman.

The surviving numbers show how small the place had become. In 1914 it had 32 registered voters, and only 12 voted on prohibition, 3 for and 9 against. A 1940 guide quoted by a hiker-photographer lists the population at "10 pop." No peak population figure appears in any source.

Marshall's store and post office burned on October 20, 1915. It was apparently rebuilt or moved, since the post office kept running. It closed in 1926, and the exact date is unknown. According to Peck's history, in May 1926 Marshall killed his wife and then himself, and "that was the end of Castle Rock." The timeline lists the post office closure and the murder-suicide as separate entries, and no independent source confirms the link, so the sequence should be treated with caution.

04Can You Visit Castle Rock Today?

Not in any way that would feel like visiting a town. The Wikipedia list of Oregon ghost towns gives the dates 1881 to 1968, and the end date comes from the water. When the John Day Dam raised Lake Umatilla in 1968, the bluff, the railroad bed and the adjacent highway were inundated. The railroad station was moved to higher ground about a mile south and renamed Castle.

Castle Rock lay downstream, west, of Boardman, at 45°50′19″N 119°50′15″W. The waters of the dam now cover it.

05What Remains of Castle Rock Today

What survives is a stretch of road. In July 2020, hiker-photographer Steve Hart documented a roughly one-mile "Castle Rock fragment" of the old Columbia River Highway, reached by a 3.5-mile rocky road. He places the town just east of that fragment, in an area now flooded, though his location is approximate.

The railroad station that took the name Castle still sits on higher ground about a mile south, and the freight business that once moved through Castle Rock now runs through Boardman. The abandoned Castle Rock townsite itself is gone. Its shipping docks, warehouses and store lie beneath the reservoir, with the old road grade as the one nearby trace.