Chehalis, Washington
Chehalis is a city in and the county seat of Lewis County, Washington, United States. The population was 7,439 at the time of the 2020 census.
The city is located in the Chehalis valley and is split by Interstate 5 and State Route 6. It is twinned with the bordering city of Centralia. The communities of Napavine and Newaukum lie directly south, with the town of Adna to the west. Due to the community's location on the Chehalis River, and the nearby confluences of the Newaukum and Skookumchuck rivers, the city has experienced several historic flooding events during its history.
Incorporated in 1883, Chehalis was primarily a logging and railroad town, with a shift towards farming in the mid-20th century. The city has bolstered its economy in the 21st century with a focus in manufacturing and warehousing.
Chehalis is home to the historic neighborhood of Claquato, the Chehalis–Centralia Airport, and the Southwest Washington Fairgrounds. The city has several distinct historical areas and boasts 11 locations on the list of National Register of Historic Places, more than any other region in Lewis County. Several museums that highlight motorcycles, veterans and military history, and the Chehalis history of railroads are located within the city limits. Chehalis contains approximately of parks, most begun by land donations and are overseen by volunteer community efforts. The community is known locally for its annual summer event, ChehalisFest.
The city anchors the beginning trailhead for the Willapa Hills Trail and accommodates riders during the Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic. Chehalis once was home to a championship minor league baseball team and often welcomed barnstorming ballclubs and competitions featuring teams from Negro league baseball.
In the 21st century, Chehalis initiated several charity, volunteer, and local government sponsored groups to revitalize the city, with focus on renovations to its historic downtown district, the upgrading of the community's transit sector, and increasing the education and graduation rate within the school district. Additional efforts of improvements were led via art programs and renovations to its parks.
Etymology
The name "Chehalis", pronounced, is derived from c̓x̣íl̕əš, the name of a principal village of the Lower Chehalis people, located near what is now Westport, Washington. It translates to "place of sand" or "shifting sand" in English. It has also been spelled Atchixe-lish, Chachelis, Checalish, Chehaylis, Chickeelas, Chixeelis, Ebihalis, Tcheles, Tsehalish, and Tse-he-lis. Early non-native explorers of the Pacific Northwest vocalized the words as "Chehalis" and proceeded to describe the original inhabitants as such.The community was originally known as Saunder's Bottom and as the town of Saundersville, named after Schuyler and Eliza Saunders on whose donation land claim it was founded when they settled on the land in 1850. Differing timelines and recognition of the name change to Chehalis exist. A founding member of the community and its postmaster, Obadiah B. McFadden, renamed the town as Chehalis in 1870. Another account claims officials for the Northern Pacific Railroad, in 1874, began to refer to the location as Chehalis but for unknown reasons. The naming was officially recognized by the state legislature on September 23, 1879. The Chehalis nomenclature is believed to denote its location to the Chehalis people and the Chehalis River.
The meaning of the names of Saunder's Bottom and Chehalis were fitting for the growing town due to the muddy bottomland along the Chehalis River which had long vexed stagecoach travelers on the Washington arm of the Oregon Trail between Kalama and New Market.
Motto and nickname
An early motto for the city, "What Chehalis makes makes Chehalis" was initiated under Mayor John West in late-1926. As red roses had long been a symbol of the community, including the All-America Rose Selections accredited Chehalis Municipal Rose Garden, the city adopted the red rose as an official community flower in 1955, leading to the nickname for Chehalis, "The Rose City", which was made official in 2000. The city's motto, "A Heritage to be Proud Of" was concurrently adopted. The community has been informally known as "The Mint City" due to I.P. Callison's mint plant and as "The Friendly City", nomenclature born from social symbolism connected to roses. An attempt to change the official moniker to "The Friendly City" in 2009 did not pass, but the city changed its motto to "Where Heart and History Shape Our Future".History
Chehalis began as a settlement around a warehouse beside a railroad track in 1873, when the Northern Pacific Railroad built northward from Kalama to Tacoma. Northern Pacific's decision bypassed the town of Claquato, then the county seat. This allowed Chehalis, in 1874, to become the central location for Lewis County government. That same year, a store was added to the warehouse, and a courthouse and several houses were constructed. Chehalis was incorporated on November 23, 1883.Logging soon began in the nearby forests. Lumber workers of Scandinavian, English, and Scots-Irish descent arrived and settled in the neighboring valleys. In 1940, the chief local industries were dairying, poultry raising, fruit growing, milk condensing, fruit and vegetable packing, brick and tile manufacturing, coal mining, portable house manufacturing, and fern shipping.
During World War II, Chehalis was home to a Boeing manufacturing plant. The factory was responsible for producing wing parts for airplanes, particularly for B-17 and B-29 bombers. The plant, which received Boeing's excellence pennant, existed between 1943 and 1945 and was located in the Harry B. Quick building. Built in the mid-1920s, it has been owned by the Lewis County Public Utilities District since the early 1940s. A plaque, installed on the exterior of the building in 2005 on the 60th anniversary of the war's end, honors the workers of the Boeing manufactory, of which 70% were Rosie the Riveters.
The city, known for its flooding events, suffered damages and hardship during other natural disasters and severe weather events. A report in the aftermath of the 1949 Olympia earthquake listed that approximately 40% of local Chehalis businesses and homes were damaged, including a tally of over 1,300 chimneys. One Chehalis resident was reported as injured and the Green Hill School, which lost the use of four buildings, recorded $2 million in damages. The high school and the West Side School were destroyed; neither was rebuilt. Chehalis was also hit hard during the Hanukkah Eve windstorm of 2006, with the interstate closed south of the city due to fallen trees.
A vessel in the United States Navy, the gunboat USS Chehalis, was named in honor of the city.
Flooding
Due to Chehalis being located near several large rivers and resting in a valley, heavy rains and snowmelt has led the city to experience numerous historic flooding events, often recorded between November and February.Historical accounts and spiritual lessons passed down in the history of Native American people living in and around the Chehalis River tell of major floods in the basin. The first record of a flood, when the community known as Saundersville was settled, was in 1865. The first newspaper accounting of floods mention events in 1887 and 1897 that disrupted sawmill operations and river and railroad traffic.
The 20th century recorded over two dozen notable flooding events in and around the Chehalis community. The earliest recordings of floods are from 1906, 1909, and 1910, with major floods in 1915 and 1919. Chehalis, which was submerged in a month-long rain event, broke flood records in 1933 and moderate floods followed later in the decade. A 1948 weather pattern, a widespread disaster for the state, led to flooding in Chehalis. Heavy rains in the early-to-mid 1950s bought moderate floodwaters.
The Christmas flood of 1964 led to widespread floodwaters in 1965. A record-setting flood occurred in 1972, submerging the interstate for the first time in the city. The Chehalis River crested twice in January 1974, causing $10 million in losses. A major flood disaster developed in 1986 after of rainfall over several days that led to the submerging of the fairgrounds and a contamination spill at a closed industrial site near Millett Field. The highway was covered with floodwaters again during a major flood disaster 1990. A 100-year flood occurred in February 1996, with the Chehalis and Skookumchuck rivers setting flood stage records. A state of emergency was declared and I-5 was closed for four days.
The city in the 21st century has had several floods of various levels including a record flood that closed the interstate in the town in December 2007 due to the Great Coastal Gale of 2007. Another major flood materialized over a year later in January 2009, immersing several regions within Chehalis, and I-5 and railroads were shut down once again. Less severe floods transpired during record daily rainfalls in 2010, 2012, and 2015. A stretch of I-5 between Chehalis and Centralia was closed for several hours after a major flood in January 2022.
Hate crimes and supremacy
Chehalis has not been immune to a history of hate crimes, racism, and white supremacy groups. An article written in the Chehalis Bee-Nugget newspaper from 1909 details a letter from a Black man who considered Chehalis a "white man's city" and would not move to the town. While the piece mentions that the people of Chehalis have not exhibited hostilities towards non-White people, the editorial does report that a Black family has never resided in the city while also acknowledging a lack of representation for citizens of Asian heritage. At the beginning of the 1910 Chehalis Gophers baseball season, the club and its ballplayers participated in a minstrel show, receiving positive reviews in a local paper. An "anti-Greek and Italian" movement existed in Chehalis around 1911 that demanded to abolish the employment of foreigners within the town.In 1924, a rally for the Ku Klux Klan was held at the Southwest Washington Fairgrounds and the estimated attendance was recorded between 20,000 and 30,000 members from around Washington. During the Great Depression, Chehalis and the surrounding cities and counties saw a rise in the participation of "Silver Shirts", a group that followed similar aspects to the Nazi movement of the era. In a Life magazine article from March 1939, the publication reported regarding hate groups and said Chehalis had a hate group leader in it, purportedly a local insurance man. A trio of female high school students wrote to the magazine, believing that the feature "did not accurately depict the feelings of local citizens" just the insurance man and his followers, and a follow-up photo article from Life in May showcased the city's actual more varied and "American ideals" atmosphere which tended to more highlight inclusion, tolerance and diversity. It was noted that the leader of that fascist group had left town after the original story had published.
After World War II, the emergence of the John Birch Society, which opposed the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, began to circulate in and around the community, though much of the group's noted activity occurred outside Chehalis with the group opening a bookstore in Centralia. Active and open participation from county residents in either the KKK or the JBS began to wane in the 1970s and 1980s, and the last activity of either group was recorded as taking place at the end of the century. The city, due to its early history and present-day lack of a Black population, was listed as a sundown town though there is no evidence the city ever had sundown policies.
Residents in the city in more recent years have protested in favor of the Black Lives Matter movement, holding two demonstrations in 2020 at the Lewis County Courthouse after the murder of George Floyd. The second event was attended by approximately 300 people who knelt for 8 minutes 46 seconds in protest against police brutality. Notwithstanding a brief interruption, the assembly remained peaceful.
A rise in hate crimes against LGBTQ people in the 21st century also affected Chehalis, usually perpetrated or led by non-Chehalis residents. In the 2020s, a billboard in Chehalis supporting LGBTQ and racial equality movements was vandalized. A drag show held in June 2023 at the Chehalis Theater was a site of controversy when a political fundraiser that referred to drag performers as "groomers" was hosted nearby without theater approval by the Lewis County GOP, headed by a non-Chehalis resident, and timed so as to coincide with the drag show in the Chehalis Theater and a similarly protested Pride event that had been held in Centralia earlier that day. The GOP's actions were condemned by local leaders shortly after. A few weeks later, a single-evening hate crime act occurred that targeted LGBTQ charities and symbols within various locations of the city. The Chehalis Friendship Fence was vandalized during the hate crime attack. The fence was repainted days later through a volunteer effort. The fence was targeted again in February 2024 after a group of three people, all with ties to a variety of hate groups, as well as previous hate crime acts, splashed the artwork with black paint. The perpetrators, who were not from Chehalis, were chased down by a local resident and caught; fellow neighbors were able to wipe the paint off before it dried but the damages were severe enough that parts of the local attraction needed to be repainted. The trio were found guilty of misdemeanor malicious mischief but were acquitted by jury on hate crime charges.