Histopolis Place-of-the-Day

Histopolis features a different cemetery, town, county or other place every day on the Place-of-The-Day.

Friday, May 20, 2011

The Histopolis Place-of-the-Day for Friday, May 20, 2011 is the Cowlitz County in Washington.

"Cowlitz County is a county located in the U.S. state of Washington. As of the 2010 census its population was 102,410. It forms the Longview, Washington, Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses all of Cowlitz County. The county seat is at Kelso, and its largest city is Longview. Its name derives from the anglicized version of the Cowlitz Indian term, Cow-e-liske, meaning either “river of shifting sands” or “capturing the medicine spirit.” It was formed on April 21, 1854.

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"Prior to the Europeans' arrival to the area, it was inhabited by numerous Native American tribes, with the Cowlitz tribe being the largest. They were drawn to the region by the abundance of salmon. The Cowlitz are considered to be the first regional inhabitants to engage in commerce as they traded extensively with other tribes in Western and Eastern Washington. The Cowlitz Indian population declined significantly from the 1829-1830 smallpox outbreak.

"European explorers discovered and began navigating the Columbia River in 1792 as British Lieutenant W.R. Broughton sailed up the river to and past present day Cowlitz County. Then on November 5, 1805, Lewis and Clark camped at that mouth of the Kalama River, under orders from President Thomas Jefferson. Over the following days, they would reached the present sites of Kelso and Longview.

"By the 1820s, the Hudson’s Bay Company had established a lucrative fur trade in the region. Furs were shipped down the Cowlitz River to the Columbia where they were loaded and shipped around the world. Trade declined significantly in the late 1830s as over-hunting and fashions had changed.

"During the next several decades, white settlement of the region was in full swing. Most of the settlers homesteaded around the number of tributaries that fed the Columbia River. It was during this era that the first settlements were established. The first was Monticello, near present-day Longview. In 1841 several families with the HBC directed Sinclair expedition from Red River Colony settled there.

"This was the location of the Monticello Convention where a group of prominent settlers from the Cowlitz and Puget Sound regions met to draft a petition to the District of Columbia calling for a separate territory, to be carved out the Oregon Territory, north of the Columbia River. This convention took place on November 25, 1852 and three months later the United States Congress formed Columbia Territory, which was later known as Washington Territory. Being one of the first counties organized, it was created on April 24, 1854, by the newly formed Washington Territorial Government and signed into law by Governor Isaac Stevens.

"Nearly every town that sprang up in the late 19th century began around a logging or lumber-milling operation. In the latter half of the 1920s, the Weyerhaeuser Company and Long-Bell Lumber Company established processing facilities. At the time, these two facilities were the first and second largest in the world. The county is still heavily dependent on the timber industry.

"Four towns have claimed the Cowlitz County seat.

- Monticello (1854–1865)

- Freeport (1865–1872)

- Kalama (1872–1922)

- Kelso (1922–Present)"

Explore Cowlitz County on Histopolis now. If you have a place that you would like to see featured as the Histopolis Place-of-the-Day, contact the webmaster to suggest it.

May 2011

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Note: The first Place-of-the-Day was in September 2010