Longview, WA

Longview was mapped down to its sidewalks and street names before construction began. The Long-Bell Lumber Company planned two mills that would need as many as 14,000 workers, then brought in landscape architect George Kessler and the firm Hare & Hare to lay out separate residential, commercial, and industrial districts. The new city was dedicated in July 1923 and incorporated in February 1924 at the confluence of the Cowlitz and Columbia rivers, about 90 miles from the Pacific. Its population was 37,818 in the 2020 census and an estimated 38,294 in 2024. Lake Sacajawea is the planned city's most extensive everyday public space. A 3.5-mile trail circles the long, narrow lake through landscaped bridges, fountains, an arboretum, and a Japanese garden; fishing, paddling, playgrounds, and picnic areas add reasons to use it beyond the loop itself.

The park becomes a civic stage each July for Go Fourth, whose current program spans a vendor market, cardboard boat regatta, children's activities, a timber show, parade, and fireworks. Downtown, the public library opened in 1926 as a gift from Long-Bell founder Robert Long. Longview's smaller public landmark is just as particular: the city counted nine Nutty Narrows squirrel bridges in 2023, descendants of the first crossing Amos Peters built over Olympia Way in 1963.