The Lewis River is a tributary of the Columbia River, about long, in southwestern Washington in the United States. It drains part of the Cascade Range north of the Columbia River. The drainage basin of the Lewis River covers about .
History
The first inhabitants of the Lewis drainage were a number of Native American tribes. Tribal listings compiled by anthropologist Verne F. Ray mention a village about upstream from the mouth of the Lewis, which was originally populated by the Cowlitz, but transitioned after 1830 to a Klickitat population. Lewis and Clark encountered a tribe on the Lewis River that they referred to as "Cathlapotles," which are thought to be Chinook, but they also recorded a Sahaptin-speaking village near the mouth of the Lewis, which were likely Klickitat people. and referred to the present-day Lewis as the Cathlapoote. Other historically recorded names include the Kattlepoutal and Washington River.
The Donation Land Claim Act of 1850 brought an influx of colonizers to the region, but just prior to that in 1845, Adolphus Lee Lewis retired from the Hudson's Bay Company and established a land claim near present day Woodland. Lewis became the county surveyor in 1856, and applied his own name to the river.
River modifications
The North Fork is impounded for hydroelectricity and flood control in its middle course by Swift Dam, forming Swift Reservoir; Yale Dam, forming Yale Lake; and Merwin Dam, forming Lake Merwin.
Horseshoe Lake in Woodland is a former oxbow of the North Fork. Beginning in 1940, the construction of U.S. Highway 99 (later to become the Interstate 5 corridor in this area), resulted in the construction of a dike that straightened the river to the east of the highway before it flows under what is now Interstate 5 near the Woodland southern boundary.
See also
- List of rivers of Washington (state)
- Tributaries of the Columbia River
References
External links
- USGS: Lewis River Basin
- North Fork Lewis River Photo Essay Documentary produced by Oregon Field Guide