Longview was the location of
Mount Coffin, an ancestral burial ground for the local indigenous people. The first Euro-American settlers were led by Harry and Rebecca Jane Huntington, in 1849. The area was named
Monticello in honor of
Thomas Jefferson's home in Virginia. In 1852 a group assembled in what would be called the "Monticello Convention" to petition
Congress for statehood to be called "Columbia". Congress agreed to statehood but as Washington, after
President Washington, to avoid confusion with the
District of Columbia. A monument to the convention is located near the Longview Civic Center. From 1854 to 1865 the town of Monticello was the seat of
Cowlitz County, before being destroyed by the flooding of the Cowlitz River in December 1867. In 1865 Nathaniel Stone founded the town of Freeport (a mile upriver from Monticello) which became the seat of Cowlitz County until 1872. The area of the towns of Monticello and Freeport is now part of the city of Longview. The area remained sparsely populated for nearly 60 years, consisting mostly of farmland and wilderness. In 1918,
Missouri timber baron
Robert A. Long (1850–1934) decided to move his operation out to the west coast, owing to the
Long-Bell Lumber Company's dwindling supplies in the south. By 1921,
Wesley Vandercook had decided to build a mill near the small town of
Kelso, Washington. It was apparent that Kelso, with a population of barely 2,000, would not be able to support the approximately 14,000 men that would be required to run the mill. The Long-Bell company contracted with
George Kessler, a city planner based in
St. Louis, to build the city that would support the two mills that were now planned. Kessler designed the town based on the nation's capital, with elements of Roman City planning. Its theme is rooted in the
City Beautiful movement, which influenced urban design in the early 20th century. Longview was officially incorporated on February 14, 1924. At the time of its conception, Longview was the only planned city of its magnitude to have ever been conceived of and built entirely with private funds. A number of prominent buildings in Longview were purchased with R. A. Long's personal funds, including
R. A. Long High School, the Longview Public Library, the
YMCA building and the
Monticello Hotel.
recycling facility in Longview's industrial zone The initial growth period, lasting from 1923 to 1934, was very rapid. The city grew from a few thousand people to being the fourth largest city in the state by the 1930s. However, the effects of the
Great Depression hampered further development of the planned city until the booming
World War II economy, when the Port of Longview became a strategic location for loading cargo going into the
Pacific Theater. The
Allen Street Bridge disaster, which involved a wooden drawbridge connecting Longview and Kelso, occurred on January 3, 1923. , the event is recognized as the deadliest bridge disaster in the state. The span collapsed under a combination of high, rushing waters of the Cowlitz River, a
log jam, and the poor condition of the overpass. The disaster happened during the end of work day, and 17 people were formally listed as having died due to the event. Suburban developments created neighborhoods in the western valley in the 1960s. The local economy has been in decline since lumber companies mechanized production in the 1970s and 1980s, reducing the availability of jobs. No major development occurred until a brief boom in the early 2000s, ended by the
recession of the late 2000s. Recently, an initiative from local activists has pushed to implement a new strategic plan to increase development in the city, in an effort to expand affordable housing. ==Geography==