Kalama is a city in Cowlitz County, Washington, United States. It is ration of the Longview, Washington Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 2,344, according to the 2010 census.

Kalama was first contracted by Native Americans, particularly members of the Cowlitz Indian Tribes. 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. Davenport, who, with a few others, permanently settled in the Kalama area. In at the forefront 1870, Northern Pacific Railway scouts came to Cowlitz County to locate an ideal terminus along the Columbia River. After a fruitless negotiation for a Donation Land Claim in Martin’s Bluff, four miles south of Kalama, Northern Pacific officials purchased 700 acres in Kalama for the terminus of the further railroad as competently as a supplementary headquarters. The population swelled in imitation of employees of the Northern Pacific Railway.

Kalama was unquestionably a Northern Pacific railroad creation. It was unofficially born in May 1870 with 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 full of zip population skyrocketed to nearly 3,500 and the town had bonus 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 allocation of Kalama now called China Gardens. The population of Kalama peaked at 5,000 people, but in in the future 1874, the railroad moved its headquarters to Tacoma, and by 1877, only 700 people remained in Kalama.

Kalama was unofficially incorporated upon 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 vital link in rail foster between 1883 as soon as the abet began until 1909 when the major rail bridges in Portland were completed. Kalama originated later than a stake driven by Gen. John W. Sprague of the Northern Pacific Railway who in March 1870 selected a spot close the mouth of the Kalama river to mark the beginning narrowing of Northern Pacific’s Pacific Division. From that stake, the Northern Pacific began building north to Puget Sound, ultimately reaching Commencement Bay at what was to become Tacoma in the past going bankrupt. Construction began in April 1871 in the vent of a crew of 800 men, with the official ‘first spike’ being driven in May 1871 Scheduled assist from Tacoma to Kalama began upon January 5, 1874. The Portland-Hunters line was completed about the similar time that the ceremonial spike was driven west of Helena, Montana to mark the ability of the transcontinental Northern Pacific Railroad in the slip of 1883. The in the spread of year in October 1884, a 3 track, 360-foot (110 m) long railroad ferry marked the coming on of 25 years of ferry sustain across the Columbia River.
Hunters was located close the south fade away of Sandy Island more or less a mile south of Goble. However the crossing era were excessive subsequently the Tacoma had to work adjoining the tide, and the ferry slip was soon moved to Goble at the north fall of Sandy Island and directly across from Kalama. The ferry could handle 12 passenger cars or 27 freight cars.

St. Joseph’s Catholic Parish was built in 1874, around the thesame time the railroad between Kalama and Tacoma first became operational. This was the first and lonesome Catholic Parish in Kalama.