People+Place Sponsor Port of

Longview

With their sponsorship, the Port of Longview celebrates its role in the history and development of Longview, and its vital part in the region’s economic health today.

nearly 100 years agO local citizens voted to form a port district in Cowlitz County following the state’s adoption of the Port District Act. This vote established the Port of Kelso on the banks of the Cowlitz River in 1921. The Port District Act required ports to be named after the largest city in the district, which was Kelso at the time, as Longview had yet to be established.

After Longview’s founding as an official city in 1923, the newly formed Chamber of Commerce favored relocating the Port of Kelso to the Columbia River to capitalize on booming maritime trade. In 1925, Port Commissioners put the relocation to a county-wide vote and the move was approved along with expanding the Port District to include the northwest portion of Cowlitz County.

The Port began to grow and soon after relocating, Port Commissioners approved the addition of a new grain elevator, which was leased to the Longview Elevator Company in 1928. The following year, as Longview’s population was now much larger than Kelso’s, voters approved renaming the Port to Port of Longview.

The Port’s first decade saw 130,000 tons of cargo moved on a modest 40 acres of land, but during World War II, the Port began moving war equipment overseas. As the war was declared over in 1945, the Port began in earnest marketing itself for cargo.

Under the direction of Manager Harvey Hart, the Port achieved status as a U.S. Customs Port of Entry in the 1950s. This important event allowed the Port to compete with other large West Coast ports and ushered in a new era of expansion.

As decades passed, new docks were built, cargoes diversified and thousands of jobs were created at the Port. Now a thriving locally-governed asset bringing benefits home to families across the Port District, the Port continues to improve the economic health of the entire region.