(Photo of Lake Sacajawea courtesy of City of Longview)

Located in Southwest Washington at the confluence of the Cowlitz and Columbia rivers, the largest city (population 36,100) in Cowlitz County was the first planned city in the Pacific Northwest. It is named for its founder, lumber baron R.A. Long, who founded Longview in 1923.

But that wasn’t the first time the area was settled by non-Native Americans. A Hudson’s Bay Co. hide and fur warehouse was placed there in 1846. By 1852, it was a thriving lumber community known as Monticello, site of the Monticello Convention, which requested that Congress create the territory of Columbia out of the Oregon Territory area north of the Columbia River. A bill to create Columbia Territory was amended to replace that name with the name of America’s first president. A year later, President Fillmore signed the bill creating Washington Territory. Floods in 1866-67 washed Monticello away.

Go here and here for more info about Longview.