Blood, Trauma, and Biohazard Cleanup in Centralia, WA

Centralia is a city in Lewis County, Washington, on Interstate 5 near the midpoint between Seattle and Portland; it is nicknamed the "Hub City" and the "City of Azaleas" and is twinned with Chehalis, its neighbor city to the south.

Centralia was founded by George Washington, a free African-American settler who came over the Oregon Trail in 1850 as the adopted son of J. G. Cochran, who sold him the land claim in 1852 for $6,000 — Washington Territory, unlike Oregon Territory, did not bar Black land ownership.

Washington and his wife Mary Jane platted the town as Centerville in 1872 ahead of the Northern Pacific Railway, laying out Biblically themed street names and selling lots for $10, with one free to buyers who built a home; the town was renamed Centralia by 1883 and incorporated on February 3, 1886.

Before the townsite was platted, the area was called Skookumchuck, Chinook Jargon for "rapids," and the Borst Home at the confluence of the Chehalis and Skookumchuck rivers served as a toll ferry and halfway stagecoach stop between Kalama and Tacoma.

Centralia's population collapsed in the Panic of 1893, but George Washington remained its central figure; when he died in 1905, all businesses in town closed and 5,000 mourners attended his funeral, and in 2023 the city declared August 15 Founder's Day in his honor.

Centralia was the site of the Centralia Massacre of November 11, 1919, when an American Legion parade attacked the Industrial Workers of the World hall and IWW member Wesley Everest was lynched.

Downtown's George Washington Park, on land the founder set aside, holds the Centralia Timberland Library, The Sentinel statue, and the Freedom Walk War Memorial honoring local soldiers killed in World War I.

Centralia is home to Centralia College, founded September 14, 1925, the oldest continuously operating junior college in Washington.

Centralia had Washington's largest open-pit mine in the 1960s, and the TransAlta coal mine near the city — the state's last coal mine — closed in 2006.

The 2020 census counted 18,183 people in Centralia living in 7,127 households, with a median age of 37.1 years.