People+Place Then and Now

The only problem about a planned city is following a plan. In public and in private. Western cities had traditionally sprung up, expanded, flailed and failed entirely on their own and with a haphazard illogic. R.A. Long was determined that his vision of orderliness — and the moral and social ramifications accompanying it — would break this cycle of boom and bust.

The Plan Problem created three tensions which haunted Longview. First, the relentless selling required to populate the new burg conflicted with the painstaking work of building it. The agents and the engineers were constantly out of synch. What was promised and what was deliverable rarely jibed. Both the builders and the hucksters felt poorly served by the other. And pressured.

The second planning problem was the matter of scale. How big is big? How do you construct something to serve a populace that has yet to exist? And is estimated at various times at between 25,000 and 200,000?

Longview has never completely reconciled the structural and infrastructural conflict between what was planned and what was actually produced. The city has never reached the agreedupon “conservative” estimate that it would host at least 50,000 souls.

Finally, plans draw a mark in the sand. They set measurable goals and publicize them. Unlike a city that simply materializes by its own osmosis, the planned city holds itself up for scrutiny and judgment at virtually every turn. How are we doing? Are we on plan? To this day, there is an admittedly simplistic but spirited debate: because it set forward its goals and ideals so assertively how do we measure whether Mr. Long’s grand experiment succeeded or failed?

Bitcoin was first invented around 2009 and has been chugging along steadily for these past 14 years, hack-free. Which is hard to say for many consumer brands, leaking account passwords seemingly every year.

I’m sure many readers still don’t understand the point of the technology, but it’s censor-proof for people living under authoritarian governments, letting users send any amount of money to anyone, anywhere, within about 15 minutes for almost zero fee.

While it’s hard for Americans to see reason for this with FedNow — the updated instant US wiring service — the other benefit is that Bitcoin is hard money, so there is a limit of 21 million coins.

I think, according to the Bitcoin four-year cycle and halving, which is built into the code, late 2025 will see record highs. It could be a good time to create a Coinbase account, buy a mix of your favorites, send them to the vault, activate high security and check back in for a likely profit.

(Note: Perry is not a licensed investment advisor; do your own research and/or consult your own advisors.

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Then and Now

III. The Last Frontier: Facts and Folklore

It’s not history. Not yet. Longview still echoes with the spoken word. At age 100 its recollections are mostly that — stories, anecdotes, newspaper clippings, high school annuals. This is still history as journalism and reminiscence, not academic or scholarly validation. It’s experience that’s slippery and intentionally elusive. It’s often simply folklore and showboating, tale telling. Bigfoot and Ape Canyon come to mind.

Ours is still a very fresh experience. Our native forebears remain with us, not always in perfect harmony, but integral to our culture. We may battle over salmon and hydro-power and water but at least we still have resources to treasure and defend. A contemporary culture like this one trades a tired reliance on a long gone past for an edgy day-to-day precipitousness. We’re truly a work in progress. Every day. And we seem to like it that way.

Historians have recognized this permanent impermanence and the effect of being “last” in the American “civilizing” movement west. Stewart

HOW DO YOU CONSTRUCT SOMETHING TO SERVE A POPULACE THAT HAS YET TO EXIST?

Holbrook, perhaps the wisest of our regional pundits — and a journalist who never pretended to be an historian — sees this effect as accelerating our history, quickening our pulse, producing an experience characterized not by long and slow accumulation of experience but by leaps of faith and psychic quantum jumps:

The history that elsewhere required from two hundred to three hundred years for its unfolding was in the Northwest compressed into much less than a century.

Stewart Holbrook

The Far Corner

Thanks to a cantankerous temperament, a rebellious streak, and even a deeply rooted belief in magic — ghosts and legends and spirits — this Pacific Northwest hopes to remain the Last Frontier.

Reflections

Longview seems to resist categorization. Maybe because its brief history — both compressed and accelerated — leaves little inclination to generalize or the temptation to draw grand conclusions. Still, at the end of this chronicle, really a series of snapshots, a few reflections.

Long Was Strong

The character, charity and courage of Robert A. Long are impossible to over-estimate. We do him a disservice if we type him only as a frail octogenarian and patriarch. Instead: He was a risk-taker and gambler, a visionary who saw farther down the road and drove down it with conviction.

Up and Down by the River

Siting Longview on the two rivers, at the confluence of Cowlitz and Columbia, saved the town from hard times and the stranglehold of its extraction economy. Hydro-power brought public utilities and industrial growth; its deep water port opened up Longview to the world; trade and transportation are its lifeblood.

Unlikely Environmentalists

Longview has outgrown its reputation as a smelly wood and paper town. Even those who’ve rued clear cutting and early forest practices see a remarkably green new economy emerging. The forest products industry pioneered re-purposed waste; its mills now rely on recycled feedstocks; and paper products are making a comeback as environmentalists shun plastics.

Empire of Engineers

Longview might have been more aptly named The Engineered City. Today’s industrialist is no longer the burly lumberjack: he (or she) is the buttoned down engineer with a laptop and pocket protector: Papermaking is chemical engineering writ large; packaging and cardboard are routed through highly engineered, sophisticated systems; computerization and software, including AI, are revolutionizing production.

Sophistication

Longview, that child of brawn, has a “sensitive side,” too. With its educated populace, good wages, and cosmopolitanism, Longview has plenty of culture and a taste for the exquisite: musical, dramatic and dance performances abound; Longview Outdoor Gallery festoons the city with sculpture; walkers, joggers and modern-day Thoreaus worship at the shrine of Lake Sacajawea; Quality of Life draws retirees, young professionals, and families.

The Planned City hasn’t always proceeded according to plan. It’s overarching goal, however, has been met. Longview has simply succeeded.

The ’23 Club honors the memory of those who planned and built the City of Longview as a social, spiritual, cultural, and economic center for local residents. Originally a social organization for lineal descendants of the founders, the Club is now open to all who share a love for the City, its beauty and its history. Annual Dues are $6 per person or $8 family.

Info: www.longview23club.org

PO Box 934, Longview, WA 98632

Visionaries, gamblers, and evangelists — they would build the world’s largest sawmill, a planned city, and a new American path to the Pacific.

Hal Calbom Empire of Trees