Biohazard Cleanup Near Riverview Raymond, WA

Raymond is a city in Pacific County in southwestern Washington, built at the estuary of the Willapa River a short distance upstream from Willapa Bay.

The town was started in 1904 as a logging center and was named for Leslie V. Raymond, a leading citizen who served as its first postmaster.

Raymond was incorporated on August 6, 1907, and grew so fast as a lumber mill town that it claimed 6,000 residents by 1913 — roughly twice its population today.

In its early years, Raymond's business section was literally built on stilts five or six feet above the tidelands and sloughs that crisscrossed the site, connected by elevated sidewalks and streets.

City fathers fought the town's "wild and wooly" mill-town reputation by promoting Raymond as "The Empire City of Willapa Harbor" and "The City That Does Things."

The 2020 census counted 3,081 people in 1,254 households in Raymond, a rebound from a long decline after the city's 1950 peak of 4,110 residents.

Raymond's economy was built on logging and fishing, and after Washington voters legalized recreational marijuana in 2012 the city also became a center for cannabis cultivation and processing.

The Northwest Carriage Museum in Raymond holds one of the most highly regarded collections of 19th-century horse-drawn vehicles in the country, including a Shelburne landau used in the films Gone with the Wind and Jezebel.

More than 200 steel sculptures line Raymond's streets as the Raymond Wildlife-Heritage Sculpture Corridor, first installed in 1993 along what is now the Willapa Hills Trail.

The Raymond Theatre, built in 1928, and the Raymond Public Library, built in 1929, are both listed on the National Register of Historic Places.