Chehalis, Washington

Chehalis sits at the heart of Lewis County, the oldest county in Washington state, organized in December eighteen forty-five when the region was still disputed with Britain. The town itself grew up around a Northern Pacific Railroad depot established in the early eighteen seventies and became the county seat in August eighteen seventy-four, displacing the older settlement of Claquato a few miles to the west.

The name Chehalis comes from the Indigenous Chehalis people, whose territory followed the river of the same name westward toward Gray's Harbor. For most of its history, the economy here turned on timber, with the dense stands of Douglas fir in the surrounding hills feeding sawmills and supporting a network of logging railroads that pushed deep into the Coast Range. Today Chehalis anchors the southern end of a small twin-city corridor with Centralia bordering it to the north.