Starbuck Cemetery
Starbuck Rd.
Starbuck, Columbia County, Washington 99359
Starbuck Cemetery is located just out of the small town of Starbuck in Columbia County. It is fenced with barbed wire, has two entrances, but no gates.
There are 116 burials, with the earliest 1886 and the latest, with two, in 2000. Many of these older headstones have beautiful poems on them. Notable is the headstone of Nae Geer and his wife Phebe Ruth Turner who ran the old wooden cabled Lyon's Ferry for many years. It was eventually replaced with a bridge. The old ferry is docked at the Lyon's Ferry State Park for all to see.
Named for railroad official W. H. Starbuck, the town was originally a junction on the main line of the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company. The town was platted in 1894, and built its first bank ten years later. In 1886, the railroad completed a line eastward from Starbuck to Pomeroy and Pataha City in Garfield County (This line remained in operation until 1981). The town was officially incorporated on September 18, 1905. In 1910, a large brick school was built.[6]
In 1914 a bridge over the Snake River was completed downstream from Lyon's Ferry, which greatly diminished the railroad traffic through the town. The economy of the town turned to agriculture, but in 1929 the bank failed. The town's population dwindled steadily until the mid- twentieth century. The High School shut down in 1956, and students had to bus to Dayton. In 1961, the railroad station was shut down as well
Today Starbuck is a quiet, agricultural town with a population of about 130.
