| Saint Helens, Washington | |
|---|---|
| Unincorporated community | |
  Saint Helens Location in the state of Washington  Saint Helens Saint Helens (the US) | |
| Coordinates: 46°20′39″N122°31′43″W / 46.34417°N 122.52861°W Coordinates: 46°20′39″N122°31′43″W / 46.34417°N 122.52861°W | |
| Country |  |
| State |  |
| County | Cowlitz |
| Elevation [1] | 288 m (945 ft) |
| Time zone | PST (UTC−8) |
| • Summer (DST) | PDT (UTC−7) |
| ZIP code | 98649 |
| Area code(s) | 360 |
| FIPS code | 53-60840 |
| GNIS feature ID | 1525356 |
Saint Helens is an unincorporated community in Cowlitz County, Washington. Saint Helens is located east of the city of Castle Rock and along the North Fork Toutle River. Saint Helens is reached by traveling 24 miles (39 km) east of Castle Rock along Washington State Route 504, which is also known as the Spirit Lake Memorial Highway. [2] The Saint Helens community takes its name from Mount St. Helens, which, in turn, was named by explorer George Vancouver after a friend of his, Baron St. Helens. [3] The Saint Helens community is part of the Toutle Lake School District, a K-12 school district of about 600 students.
In law, an unincorporated area is a region of land that is not governed by a local municipal corporation; similarly an unincorporated community is a settlement that is not governed by its own local municipal corporation, but rather is administered as part of larger administrative divisions, such as a township, parish, borough, county, city, canton, state, province or country. Occasionally, municipalities dissolve or disincorporate, which may happen if they become fiscally insolvent, and services become the responsibility of a higher administration. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. In most other countries of the world, there are either no unincorporated areas at all, or these are very rare; typically remote, outlying, sparsely populated or uninhabited areas.
Cowlitz County is a county located in the U.S. state of Washington. As of the 2010 census, its population was 102,410. The county seat is Kelso, and its largest city is Longview. The county was formed in April 1854. Its name derives from the anglicized version of the Cowlitz Indian term, Cow-e-liske, meaning either "river of shifting sands" or "capturing the medicine spirit."
Castle Rock is a city in Cowlitz County, Washington, United States. Located between the Willapa Hills and western base of Mount St. Helens, Castle Rock is at the heart of Washington timber country in the Pacific temperate rain forest. Castle Rock is part of the Longview, Washington Metropolitan Statistical Area; the population was 1,982 as of the 2010 census.
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Saint Helens is located 19.15 miles (30.82 km) northwest of Mount St. Helens. The eruption of Mount St. Helens on May 18, 1980, was the deadliest and most economically destructive volcanic event in the history of the United States.
On May 18, 1980, a major volcanic eruption occurred at Mount St. Helens, a volcano located in Skamania County, in the U.S. state of Washington. The eruption was the most significant volcanic eruption to occur in the contiguous 48 U.S. states since the much smaller 1915 eruption of Lassen Peak in California. It has often been declared as the most disastrous volcanic eruption in U.S. history. The eruption was preceded by a two-month series of earthquakes and steam-venting episodes, caused by an injection of magma at shallow depth below the volcano that created a large bulge and a fracture system on the mountain's north slope.
The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States or America, is a country composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is slightly smaller than the entire continent of Europe's 3.9 million square miles. With a population of over 327 million people, the U.S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D.C., and the largest city by population is New York City. Forty-eight states and the capital's federal district are contiguous in North America between Canada and Mexico. The State of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The State of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U.S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The extremely diverse geography, climate, and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world's 18 megadiverse countries.
