Toledo, Washington

This small Lewis County town got its name from a riverboat. In eighteen seventy-nine, settler Augustus Rochon platted three blocks along the Cowlitz River, and the steamship Toledo, operated by the Kellogg and Company line, began making regular runs between Portland and this upriver landing. When Celeste Rochon was asked to name the new community, she looked out at the river, saw the boat, and the name was settled.

The Kellogg family eventually bought the entire original townsite for two thousand three hundred fifty dollars. Toledo incorporated in October of eighteen ninety-two with thirty-nine residents voting in favor and twelve opposed. It remains one of the small Lewis County river towns that thrived on steamboat commerce, timber, and dairy farming before Interstate Five bypassed the old valley routes.