Richenda Fairhurst

Fishers Landing boasted many of Clark County's earliest legislators and power brokers. Men like Solomon W. Fisher, William M. Simmons, Silas D. Maxon, Joel Knight, and Henry M. Knapp--family men who came by wagon train and settled where the land was rich--established Clark County's first roads, schools, and post offices. The men of Fishers Landing and their allies served multiple terms in the Washington Territorial Legislature, House, and Council. When Washington became a state in 1889, two area sons, Samuel S. Cook and Hannibal Blair, served in the first state legislature. The soil at Fishers Landing and on the plain produced abundantly, enabling the families who farmed it to invest in warehouses, wharfage, railroads, agribusiness, lumber, quarry rock, and other forms of enterprise. The people of Fishers Landing, and on Mill Plain, mixed ideas of good governance with fervent territorial politics and the good life of family and the family farm.

Ideally located where the Washougal River meets the mighty Columbia, the town of Washougal rests at the gateway to the Columbia River Gorge, land of the native Chinook tribes. It was at Cottonwood Beach that Lewis and Clark spent six days reprovisioning in 1806. Settlers followed, loading wagons with bacon, flour, salt, and beans and heading west. These pioneers were not the lean, get-rich-quick bachelors of the California gold rush. These were family men, bringing with them six or seven children at a time and, once established, having six or seven more. The town itself was established in 1880 on land claimed by Richard Ough, a sailor who settled down in order to win his Chinook princess bride, Betsey White Wing. Washougal's first families--among them Oughs, Cottrells, Durgans, Kisers, Aunes, Webbers, and Goots--cleared the forest, planted orchards, and raised grass-fat dairy cows. Their descendents, and the emigrants who followed them, continued the work of building this unique community and its strong sense of place.