Biohazard Cleanup Near Downtown Chehalis Chehalis, WA

Chehalis is a city and the county seat of Lewis County in southwestern Washington, twinned with the bordering city of Centralia immediately to its north and split by Interstate 5.

The name Chehalis, pronounced sha-HAY-liss, derives from a Lower Chehalis word meaning 'place of sand' or 'shifting sand.'

The community began as Saundersville on the 1850 donation land claim of Schuyler and Eliza Saunders and was renamed Chehalis in 1870.

When the Northern Pacific Railroad built through in 1873 it bypassed the existing county seat at Claquato, and Chehalis became the seat of Lewis County government in 1874; the older Claquato settlement survives as a historic neighborhood within modern Chehalis.

Chehalis was incorporated on November 23, 1883, and developed as a logging and railroad town before shifting toward farming in the mid-20th century and manufacturing and warehousing more recently.

The 2020 census counted 7,439 residents in Chehalis, while the 2010 census had recorded 7,259 people living in 2,868 households.

Chehalis is officially nicknamed 'The Rose City,' after the red rose it adopted as its community flower in 1955; it is also informally called 'The Mint City' for its mint-farming heritage.

Chehalis has 11 locations listed on the National Register of Historic Places, more than any other area in Lewis County.

The city is home to the Southwest Washington Fairgrounds, which host the Southwest Washington Fair, and to the Chehalis-Centralia Airport.

Chehalis contains about 273 acres of parks and anchors the beginning trailhead of the Willapa Hills Trail, and each summer it hosts riders in the Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic.