Lumber Industry Has Long History in Cowlitz County

A Portland‚ Ore.‚ newspaper reporter visiting Longview in 1923 described the upstart town as a “Utopian dream.” The model city in the making was the brainchild of Robert A. Long‚ chairman of the board of Long-Bell Lumber Co.‚ who laid out the town at the confluence of the Cowlitz and Columbia rivers in 1922 – two years before the company’s new mill started production there. “Mr. Long was interested in building a community that was a good quality place to live‚” says David Freece‚ director of... Read More »