Biohazard Cleanup Near West Longview Longview, WA

Longview is a city in Cowlitz County, Washington, at the junction of the Cowlitz and Columbia rivers; with 37,818 residents at the 2020 census, it is the county's most populous city and the center of the Longview metropolitan statistical area.

Longview is a planned city: Missouri timber baron Robert A. Long's Long-Bell Lumber Company bought vast Cowlitz County timberlands in 1918 and, needing housing for some 14,000 mill workers, built an entire city designed for up to 50,000 people.

City planner George Kessler of St. Louis designed Longview on the model of Washington, D.C., in the City Beautiful style, and at its conception it was the only planned city of its size ever conceived and built entirely with private funds.

Longview was officially incorporated on February 14, 1924, and its motto remains 'R. A. Long's Planned City'; it also carries the nickname 'The City of Trees.'

R. A. Long personally paid for several landmark buildings, including R. A. Long High School, the Longview Public Library, the YMCA building, and the Monticello Hotel.

Growth was explosive in the city's first decade: by the 1930s Longview had become the fourth-largest city in Washington.

The Longview area began as Monticello, settled in 1849; delegates meeting there in the 1852 Monticello Convention petitioned Congress to create a new territory, which became Washington Territory, and Monticello served as Cowlitz County's first seat (1854-1865) before being destroyed by a Cowlitz River flood in December 1867.

The 2020 census counted 37,818 people and 15,913 households in Longview.

Lower Columbia College, a community college established in 1934, is based in Longview, and Longview Public Schools operates two public high schools: R. A. Long and Mark Morris.

Lake Sacajawea, a former slough reshaped during the city's construction, is Longview's signature park and hosts the Go Fourth Festival each Independence Day; both Lake Sacajawea Park and the Civic Center are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.