Chelatchie | |
---|---|
Coordinates: 45°55′40.4″N122°22′46.35″W / 45.927889°N 122.3795417°W | |
Country | United States |
State | Washington |
County | Clark |
Elevation | 443 ft (135 m) |
Time zone | UTC-8 (Pacific (PST)) |
• Summer (DST) | UTC-7 (PDT) |
Area code | 360 |
GNIS feature ID | 1517654 [1] |
Chelatchie is an unincorporated community in Clark County, Washington.
Chelatchie is located about 30 miles (48 km) northeast of Vancouver, Washington in the Chelatchie Prairie (or Chelatchie Valley) area, and consists of several homes, a general store, and a United States Forest Service visitor center for the Mount St. Helens Volcanic National Monument. It is one of the more remote communities on Washington State Route 503, and serves as a gateway into the Siouxon Creek area of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest.
The area was first settled around 1860, and was among the first settlements in the area. [2] The name was derived from "ch'álacha," [3] a Klickitat word describing a valley with tall ferns. [4]
The Chelatchie Prairie Railroad was extended to the area in 1948, with the International Paper Company opening a plywood mill at the end of the line in 1960, [5] which operated until 1979.
Clark County is the southernmost county in the U.S. state of Washington. As of the 2020 census, the population was 503,311, making it Washington's fifth-most populous county. Its county seat and largest city is Vancouver. It was the first county in Washington, first named Vancouver County in 1845 before being renamed for William Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1849. It was created by the Provisional Government of Oregon in Oregon Country on August 20, 1845, and at that time covered the entire present-day state. Clark County is the third-most-populous county in the Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro Metropolitan Statistical Area, and is across the Columbia River from Portland, Oregon.
The Cascade Range or Cascades is a major mountain range of western North America, extending from southern British Columbia through Washington and Oregon to Northern California. It includes both non-volcanic mountains, such as many of those in the North Cascades, and the notable volcanoes known as the High Cascades. The small part of the range in British Columbia is referred to as the Canadian Cascades or, locally, as the Cascade Mountains. The highest peak in the range is Mount Rainier in Washington at 14,411 feet (4,392 m).
The Pacific Northwest, sometimes referred to as Cascadia, is a geographic region in Western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though no official boundary exists, the most common conception includes the U.S. states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and the Canadian province of British Columbia. Some broader conceptions reach north into Alaska and Yukon, south into northern California, and east into western Montana. Other conceptions may be limited to the coastal areas west of the Cascade and Coast mountains.
Yakima County is a county in the U.S. state of Washington. As of the 2020 census, its population was 256,728. The county seat and most populous city is Yakima. The county was formed out of Ferguson County in January 1865 and is named for the Yakama tribe of Native Americans.
Skamania County is a county located in the U.S. state of Washington. As of the 2020 census, the population was 12,036. The county seat and largest incorporated city is Stevenson, although the Carson River Valley CDP is more populous. Skamania County is included in the Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Washington County is a regional economic, educational, and cultural hub in the Northwest Arkansas region. Created as Arkansas's 17th county on November 30, 1848, Washington County has 13 incorporated municipalities, including Fayetteville, the county seat, and Springdale. The county is also the site of small towns, bedroom communities, and unincorporated places. The county is named for George Washington, the first President of the United States. Located within the Ozark Mountains, the county is roughly divided into two halves: the rolling Springfield Plateau in the more populous north of the county and the steeper, forested Boston Mountains in the much less populated south. It contains three segments of the Ozark National Forest, two state parks, two Wildlife Management Areas, the Garrett Hollow Natural Area, and dozens of city parks. Other historical features such as Civil War battlefields, log cabins, one-room school houses, community centers, and museums describe the history and culture of Washington County. Washington County occupies 951.72 square miles and contained a population of 245,871 people in 89,249 households as of the 2020 Census, ranking it 4th in size and 3rd in population among the state's 75 counties. The economy is largely based on the business/management, education, sales, office/administration, and poultry production industries. Poverty rates, median household income, and unemployment rates best state averages, but lag national trends. Washington County has long had a reputation for education in the state. The University of Arkansas, the largest four-year college in the state, was established in Fayetteville in 1871. A Washington County campus of the Northwest Arkansas Community College was opened in 2019 in Springdale. Today, Washington County contains eight public school districts, including two of the largest districts in the state and two private schools. It is included in the Fayetteville–Springdale–Rogers Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Yacolt is a town in Clark County, Washington, United States. The 2023 population is estimated to be 1,626. It is located about 30 miles northeast of Vancouver which is part of the Portland-Vancouver metropolitan area.
Darrington is a town in Snohomish County, Washington, United States. It is located in a North Cascades mountain valley formed by the Sauk and North Fork Stillaguamish rivers. Darrington is connected to nearby areas by State Route 530, which runs along the two rivers towards the city of Arlington, located 30 miles (48 km) to the west, and Rockport. It had a population of 1,347 at the 2010 census.
Eastern Washington is the region of the U.S. state of Washington located east of the Cascade Range. It contains the city of Spokane, the Tri-Cities, the Columbia River and the Grand Coulee Dam, the Hanford Nuclear Reservation and the fertile farmlands of the Yakima Valley and the Palouse. Unlike in Western Washington, the climate is dry, including some desert environments.
The Lewis River is a tributary of the Columbia River, about 95 miles (153 km) long, in southwestern Washington in the United States. It drains part of the Cascade Range north of the Columbia River. The drainage basin of the Lewis River covers about 1,046 square miles (2,709 km2). The river's mean annual discharge is about 6,125 cubic feet per second (173.4 m3/s). Unlike nearby Lewis County and Fort Lewis the Lewis River was not named for Meriwether Lewis, but rather for A. Lee Lewis, an early colonizer who homesteaded near the mouth of the river.
The Chelatchie Prairie Railroad is a heritage railroad in Yacolt, Washington. Formerly a Northern Pacific branchline and operated by the Longview, Portland and Northern Railway for many years, in the 1980s and 1990s the line went through a number of successive operators. Today the railroad is owned by Clark County, Washington, and the trackage from Vancouver Junction to Heisson is operated by the Portland Vancouver Junction Railway for freight traffic. No freight traffic exists north of Battle Ground at this time.
The Lewis and Clark Railway was a county-owned railroad located in Clark County, Washington. The line was 33 miles (53 km) long, beginning at the BNSF interchange at Rye Junction in Vancouver, Washington and stretching northeast, passing through Brush Prairie and Battle Ground to the line's northern end past Yacolt.
The Klickitat are a Native American tribe of the Pacific Northwest. Today most Klickitat are enrolled in the federally recognized Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, some are also part of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon.
Heisson is an unincorporated community in Clark County, Washington.
Boistfort is an unincorporated community in the northwest United States, in Lewis County, Washington, about twenty miles (30 km) southwest of Chehalis.
State Route 503 (SR 503) is a 54.11-mile-long (87.08 km) state highway serving Clark and Cowlitz counties in the U.S. state of Washington. The highway travels north from a short concurrency with SR 500 in Orchards through Battle Ground, the eastern terminus of SR 502, and communities in rural Clark County before crossing the Lewis River on the Yale Bridge. SR 503 intersects its spur route and turns west to parallel the Lewis River downstream to Woodland, where the highway ends at an interchange with Interstate 5 (I-5). The highway was part of the Lewis River Road, signed as State Road 15, from 1909 until 1919. The current route of SR 503 was split between Secondary State Highway 1S (SSH 1) from Woodland to Battle Ground and SSH 1U from Battle Ground to Orchards in 1937, combined to form SR 503 during the 1964 highway renumbering. A spur route, established in 1991, travels northeast into the Gifford Pinchot National Forest along Yale Lake, serving the community of Cougar.
Washington, officially the State of Washington, is the northernmost state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is often referred to as Washington state to distinguish it from the national capital, both named for George Washington. Washington borders the Pacific Ocean to the west, Oregon to the south, Idaho to the east, and shares an international border with the Canadian province of British Columbia to the north. Olympia is the state capital, and the most populous city is Seattle.
Vancouver is a city on the north bank of the Columbia River in the U.S. state of Washington, located in Clark County. Founded in 1825 and incorporated in 1857, Vancouver had a population of 190,915 as of the 2020 census, making it the fourth-most populous city in Washington state. Vancouver is the seat of government of Clark County and forms part of the Portland-Vancouver metropolitan area, the 25th-largest metropolitan area in the United States. Originally established in 1825 around Fort Vancouver, a fur-trading outpost, the city is located on the Washington–Oregon border along the Columbia River, directly north of Portland.
Tumtum Mountain is a small, highly-symmetrical volcanic cone in Washington, United States. Located in northern Clark County at the easternmost end of Chelatchie Prairie, it rises to an elevation of 2,004 feet (611 m), about 1,400 feet (430 m) above the flat prairie. This Pleistocene dacite lava dome is part of the Cascade Volcanic Arc, and with an age of only about 70,000 years, Tumtum Mountain is the youngest and westernmost volcano in the Cascades of Washington state.
The East Fork Lewis River is a river in the state of Washington in the United States. It is the largest tributary of the Lewis River. Its source is on Green Lookout Mountain in Skamania County. It then flows to the west through Clark County until it converges with the Lewis about 3.5 mi (5.6 km) upstream from the Columbia River.