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Cowlitz County was one of the original counties of Washington Territory. Logging and milling have historically been the big part of the county's economy until the latter part of the twentieth century. A lumber mill led directly to the planned community of Longview, named after lumberman R. A. Long (1850-1934). The original inhabitants of the lands drained by the Cowlitz River were variously called The Cawalitz, Cow-a-lidsk, Cowalitsk, Cow-e-lis-kee, Cowelits, Cowlitch, Co-litsick, Kawelitsk, Cowalitsk, Kowlitz, Kowlitz, but the most common name is Cowlitz. The Upper Cowlitz, or Taidnapam, and Lewis River peoples spoke Sahaptin, which was more closely related to the languages of tribes east of the Cascades. The Mountain and Lower Cowlitz spoke Salish, which was related to the tribes of Puget Sound. At the time of first contact with Europeans and Americans, there were as many as 6,000 members of the tribe who lived in cedar-plank longhouses in about 30 villages along the Cowlitz River and its tributaries. Closer to the Columbia, the people known as the Chinooks lived. This tribe ’s economy and culture was oriented more toward the river whereas the Cowlitz was more an inland people whose lives centered on prairies and horses. All the tribes used the Chinook trade jargon. In 1855, the Cowlitz refused to sign the Chehalis River Treaty then being imposed on other tribes by Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens (1818-1862), since it would require the tribe to move in with traditional enemies on the Quinault Reservation. A small number of members who survived deadly diseases contracted from settlers moved to the Chehalis and Yakima (later renamed Yakama) reservations. Although landless and treatyless, the tribe continued to exist under strong leadership into the twentieth century. The Cowlitz today are a federally recognized tribe with headquarters in Longview. The first Europeans to visit the county were British seafarers. Permanent settlers arrived from the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) at Fort Vancouver in 1825, and the first white man credited with ascending the Cowlitz River was HBC Factor George Simpson in 1828. In 1837, Canadian Simon Plamondon established Cowlitz Farms to support company operations and as a settlement for HBC employees who had completed their work contracts. In August 1841, Lieutenant Charles Wilkes traveled down the river as part of the U.S. Exploring Expedition and he used Mount Coffin to make astronomical observations. One of Wilkes ’s campfires accidentally destroyed the burial canoes on the rock. The first American to settle in the future Cowlitz County was Scotsman Peter W. Crawford (1822-1889), who took a Donation Claim on the left bank of the Cowlitz near the mouth of the Coweeman on December 25, 1847. In 1884, he platted a city on the site, which he named after his home in Scotland, Kelso. Other settlers took up claims across the Cowlitz and farmed the bottomland. They formed the communities of Freeport, Catlin, and Monticello. River steamers serviced settlements up the Cowlitz as far as Monticello, where travelers took to canoes or a trail that followed the river.

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