Willapa Pacific County, Washington

Name: Willapa
Address: Washington

WILLAPA: Early county settlement at the junction of the Willapa River and Wilson Creek. The name Willapa was taken from the river on which it is located. The town was originally called "Woodard's Landing". Samuel S. Woodard came to the Willapa Valley in 1852, took up a Donation Land Claim at the junction of the river and creek in January 1853, and built a landing for Portland steamers carrying mail, freight, and new settlers to the Willapa Valley. The landing was at the end of navigable waters on the Willapa River. Another pioneer, James H. Whitcomb filed an adjoining donation claim south of Woodard in 1853. Around 1869, Woodard left the landing and moved to Portland (where he died in 1877). The post office at Fort Willapa (Giesy's Crossing) was moved to Woodard's Landing on December 7, 1870. Mail was carried from the Landing to all parts of the Willapa Valley and Upper North River Valley. The post office name changed to Willapa on April 24, 1884, when Ed and Sarah Woodard (son and daughter-in-law of Samuel) announced they had surveyed "Woodard's Town of Willapa" (recorded at courthouse December 1884). Another portion of the Woodard claim, purchased by John Wood, was also surveyed as "Wood's Town of Willapa", and the Whitcomb claim sold to S.S. McEwing, John Dolan, and others, was surveyed and filed as the plat of "Willapa City". In the 1870s logging in the Willapa Hills, and portable sawmills on various area creeks, spurred population growth at the Landing. Another boom followed the platting and naming of Willapa in the 1880s. Boats arrived three times a week to discharge cargo, mail and passengers, and there were two warehouses at the landing to hold supplies for settlers. Willapa had three hotels, two drug stores, general merchandise store, real estate office, barber shop, doctors offices, blacksmith shop, livery stables, post office, school, newspaper, land survey office, and several saloons. On December 9, 1889, the Willapa Methodist Church (the oldest church still being used in the county) was dedicated and a minister lived in the parsonage next door. Construction of the Northern Pacific Railroad from Chehalis to South Bend in 1892 brought Willapa's boom years to an end. S.S. McEwing wanted too much money for the right-of-way through his property, so the railroad by-passed the town in favor of a depot site southwest of Willapa called "East Raymond". By 1900, all the hotels in the town of Willapa were empty and many of the businesses moved to South Bend or East Raymond. In 1915, the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad built a depot in East Raymond and the Willapa post office was moved there. Local residents refer to East Raymond as "Willapa" and the old townsite as "Old Willapa".

“A Name for Every Place Around Pacific County, from A to Z.” Chinook Observer, 13 May 2013, https://chinookobserver.com/2013/05/13/a-name-for-every-place-around-pacific-county-from-a-to-z/.

Mapped Location

Willapa: The mapped location is an approximation and should not be used for navigation or wayfinding.

Information

General information on Willapa

Feature Type: Place

Official, historical, colloquial and alternative toponyms for Willapa

A brief list of names that this geographic feature has been named

Name	Description
Willapa	Official

Origin Notes and History of Willapa

References to Willapa that document the origin of its place name

WILLAPA, a bay, river and town in Pacific County, all bear this Indian name. The name was first applied to the Indians and the river, on the banks of which they lived. Writing in 1853, James G. Swan recorded: "The Indians of Shoalwater Bay had no distinct language of their own, but used the Chinook or Chehalis promiscuously, with the exception of the tribe on the Whil-a-pah River, who spoke a language somewhat resembling the Cowlitz. There are two or three of the Whil-a-pah Indians still living at Shoaiwater Bay, but the rest of the tribe is all extinct" (The Northwest Coast, page 211.) Captain George Davidson wrote: "The Whil-a-pah Indians are extinct. The true name is Ah-whil-a-pah, or Ah-whil-lapsh." (Pacific Coast Pilot, page 475.) The Bureau of American Ethnology calls these Indians a Cinookan tribe and says a single survivor who understood the language was known in 1910. (Handbook American Indians, Volume II., pages 955-956.) George Gibbs mentioned the stream as "Willopah" on March 1, 1854. (Pacific Railroad Reports, Volume I., page 465.) From that time on some variation of the name was used on maps and charts. The bay was discovered by Lieutenant John Meares, retired officer of the British Navy, on July 5, 1788. He was then in the fur trade. He called it Shoalwater Bay. (Voyages Made in the Years 1788 and 1789, Volume I., page 263.) Meares on the next day named Deception Bay and Cape Disappointment. He was looking for the "River San Roque" reported by the Spaniards. After the discovery of the Columbia River by Captain Robert Gray, the chart by Meares was deemed wholly inaccurate. "It was thrown aside altogether, and his account of Shoal-water Bay considered fabulous." (James G. Swan, The Northwest Coast, page 24.) The bay was explored and the name Shoalwater Bay was restored to the charts by Lieutenant James Alden, United States Navy, while working for the United States Coast Survey in 1853. (United States Public Documents, Serial No. 704, chart 50.) The neglect of the bay between the dates mentioned, 1792 and 1853, was not complete. The Wilkes Expedition, 1841, shows an exploration of the bay by Midshipman Eld. (Narrative, Volume V., page 133.) The Bureau of American Ethnology says the Chehalis Indian name for Shoalwater Bay is "Atsmitl." (Handbook of American Indians, Volume I, page 113.) The name of Shoalwater Bay proved a commercial handicap and was changed by extending the name of the river to the bay. On September 13, 1921,, the Seattle Times published a special dispatch saying a new thirty-foot channel had been discovered at the entrance to the bay. The town of Willapa is three miles southeast of Raymond.

Edmond S. Meany in Origin of Washington Geographic Names

Meany, Edmond S., Origin of Washington Geographic Names, 1923 University of Washington, pp 349-350 | Origin of Washington Geographic Names

Pacific County

Political Boundaries

Last updated: 2026-09-27