![]() Clark marked it as a "good wintering Place" (William Clark, Journal of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, November 3, 1805), although it lost out to the Clatsop area farther west as the expedition's 1805-1806 winter home. They passed the mouth of the Washougal River while traveling down the Columbia on their voyage to the Pacific Ocean in November 1805. The Corps of Discovery led by Lewis and Clark left a better record. Earlier that same year American fur trader, Robert Gray (1755-1806), was first to enter the Columbia by ship, but he did not go upriver as far as the Camas-Washougal area. ![]() Broughton and his men rowed in their ship's cutter to a point about four miles upriver of present-day Washougal, and they no doubt had some contact with the people who fished there. With the exception of early trappers and traders, the first contact the indigenous people of the Washougal area had with the white man was most likely in October 1792, when Lieutenant William Broughton (1762-1821) was sent by Captain George Vancouver (1758-1798) to explore the lower reaches of the Columbia River. Among the names attributed to them over the years, in addition to Watlala, were Cathlakaheckit, Cathlathlala, Cathlayackty, Clahclellah, Katlagakya, and Yehuh. As no authoritative records exist, it's impossible to identify with certainty which specific groups moved in and out of what is present-day Washougal. It was after this plant that Washougal's neighbor city of Camas was named. Besides the rich fishery of the Columbia and other local rivers, these Native Americans were drawn to the site by the abundance of camas lilies, the bulbs of which were considered a delicacy by tribes from the Great Plains to the Pacific. They were specifically identified as the Watlalas by several sources, but the population of the area was variable, and several different bands of Chinook-related Indians came there to reap the bounty when the salmon were running. The indigenous people of the Washougal area were Chinookan-speaking Indians classified by early explorers as part of the "Cascade peoples," after the Columbia River rapids upstream to the east. Much of this growth is attributable to residents who work in urban Vancouver or Portland, but choose to live in the much smaller and more rural Washougal. Although Washougal is suffering from the same economic woes as many other cities and towns, its population continues to grow. Today (2010) the city's economy is led by manufacturing and retail. An enduring link between past and present, and Washougal's largest employer for 100 years, is its woolen mill, built in 1910 and now part of the Pendleton Company. The first non-Native settlers came to the area in the late 1830s or early 1840s, and in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Washougal became a center for agriculture, dairy, and logging, and a terminus for riverboat traffic. The area was accessible to early travelers coming from both the mouth of the Columbia on the Pacific Ocean to the northwest and from upriver to the east. ![]() The Washougal River wends its way through the western half of the city, emptying into the Columbia at Camas. ![]() The city's western limits blend with neighboring Camas, and on the east give way to fertile lowlands, prairie, and forest that lead to Skamania County, Bonneville Dam, and the scenic Columbia Gorge. Reed Island, near the eastern edge of Washougal, is the southernmost point in Washington state. Vancouver, the Clark County seat, is approximately 18 miles to the west and slightly north, linked to Washougal by State Route 14. The City of Washougal lies along the north bank of the Columbia River in the southeast corner of Clark County.
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