Camas, WA

Downtown Camas sits between a century-old paper mill and the slopes above the Columbia River, a relationship visible in its street grid and brick storefronts. The town formed beside the mill in the 1880s, and a 1923 fire destroyed much of the commercial center before businesses rebuilt in masonry. Today, Fourth Avenue carries shops, restaurants, City Hall, and the Camas Public Library through that rebuilt core. Mill buildings and rail infrastructure remain close to the south, while residential streets rise north toward Lacamas Lake and Prune Hill. This compressed arrangement makes the industrial origin hard to miss: civic events can occupy downtown blocks within sight of the facility that first created the town. The rebuilt core remains physically tied to the mill, railroad, and river that preceded later hillside growth.

The city took its name from the camas lily and grew after the LaCamas Colony Company bought land in 1883 and developed a paper operation. Production began in 1885, tying local work to timber, pulp, rail, and the Columbia River. During World War II, the mill made rudders for Liberty ships built at nearby Kaiser shipyards. The present Georgia-Pacific facility is smaller than the historic complex; most operations have closed, but it continues making paper from purchased pulp and treating industrial wastewater. Semiconductor manufacturing adds a very different industrial lineage. WaferTech established a fabrication plant in Camas in the 1990s, and its parent company renamed the subsidiary TSMC Washington in 2023. Paper machinery and chip fabrication now occupy separate parts of a local economy that also includes downtown services and regional work reached through State Route 14.

Camas’s physical character changes quickly north of downtown. Prune Hill is an extinct volcanic vent in the Boring Volcanic Field, and its elevation separates hillside neighborhoods from the riverfront industrial ground. Beyond it, Lacamas Lake, Round Lake, Lacamas Creek, and connected wetlands create a broad band of water and protected land. Heritage Trail follows the west side of Lacamas Lake from Heritage Park, where a boat launch and picnic area meet the shoreline. Trails continue through Lacamas Park around Round Lake and toward the potholes on Lacamas Creek. The city also has shoreline on the Columbia and Washougal rivers, giving it both large-river and inland-lake landscapes. These landforms affect ordinary movement: routes between downtown, lake neighborhoods, and Vancouver funnel around hills, water, and the State Route 14 corridor.

Events and civic institutions draw those sections together at different times. The Downtown Camas Association organizes First Friday programs each month, bringing games, art, music, and participating businesses onto the old commercial blocks; Camas Days adds a larger summer street festival. The public library has served the city since 1923 and now shares a civic campus with City Hall near Fourth Avenue. North of downtown, lake trails, boat access, and neighborhood parks create a separate recreational center, and the C-TRAN Current on-demand service covers trips within Camas and Washougal as of 2026. First Friday storefronts, the operating paper mill, Prune Hill, and Lacamas Lake each draw activity into a different band of the city. Their close spacing—brick downtown, industrial plants, volcanic slope, and lake shore—is the clearest picture of present-day Camas.