Weyerhaeuser NR Company

About forestry service, 98531, Centralia, WA, US, Washington

Centralia () is a city in Lewis County, Washington, United States. It is located along Interstate 5 near the midpoint between Seattle and Portland, Oregon. The city had a population of 18,183 at the 2020 census. Centralia is twinned with Chehalis, located to the south near the confluence of the Chehalis and Newaukum rivers. == History == === Skookumchuck === The area was first settled by the Upper Chehalis people, who had several villages at the confluence of the Skookumchuck and Chehalis rivers. The first non-indigenous settlers arrived in 1845. In 1850, J. G. Cochran and his wife Anna were led there via the Oregon Trail by their adopted son, George Washington, a free African-American. The family feared Washington would be forced into slavery if they stayed in Missouri after the passage of the Compromise of 1850. Cochran filed a donation land claim near the Borst Home in 1852 and was able to sell his claim to Washington for $6,000 because unlike the neighboring Oregon Territory, there was no restriction against passing legal ownership of land to African Americans in the newly formed Washington Territory. The town was originally called Skookumchuck.