In 1853, there was stagecoach stop at what is now Goshen, on the stage line that led from Oregon City to the gold country in Jacksonville. The Goshen area was settled in the 1870s. Goshen post office was established in September 1874, with John Handsaker as first postmaster. In the Bible, Goshen was the pastoral land in lower Egypt occupied by the Israelites before the Exodus. An author for the "Lane County Historian" wrote that Goshen was named by John Jacob Hampton, although "Oregon: End of the Trail" says that it was named by Elijah Bristow. Bristow saw the area as a "land of promise." The post office was discontinued in 1957, when it became an Independent Rural Station of Eugene.