Napavine, Washington

The name Napavine is said to echo a Native word meaning small prairie, which is exactly what early settlers found here, a modest open clearing in Lewis County's dense fir forest. John Henry Cutting became one of the first European arrivals in eighteen fifty-two, paddling the Cowlitz River by canoe from San Francisco with his family. Scottish immigrant James Urquhart formally platted the town in eighteen eighty-three, naming it from the Native word.

The Northern Pacific Railroad's arrival through Lewis County in the eighteen eighties turned the small prairie into a working timber town, eventually supporting nine saw and shingle mills. Napavine incorporated in November of nineteen thirteen. Today fewer than two thousand people live here, and the prairie that gave the town its name is mostly gone to second-growth forest and farmland.