Fishers Landing

by Richenda Fairhurst

Overview

Fishers Landing boasted many of Clark County's earliest legislators and power brokers. Men like Solomon W. Fisher, William M. Simmons, Silas D. Maxon, Joel Knight, and Henry M. Knapp—family men who came by wagon train and settled where the land was rich—established Clark County's first roads, schools, and post offices. The men of Fishers Landing and their allies served multiple terms in the Washington Territorial Legislature, House, and Council. When Washington became a state in 1889, two area sons, Samuel S. Cook and Hannibal Blair, served in the first state legislature. The soil at Fishers Landing and on the plain produced abundantly, enabling the families who farmed it to invest in warehouses, wharfage, railroads, agribusiness, lumber, quarry rock, and other forms of enterprise. The people of Fishers Landing, and on Mill Plain, mixed ideas of good governance with fervent territorial politics and the good life of family and the family farm.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780738558387
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing SC
Publication date:	07/07/2008
Series:	Images of America Series
Pages:	128
Product dimensions:	6.54(w) x 9.18(h) x 0.32(d)

About the Author

Longtime resident and author Richenda Fairhurst is a member of the Camas-Washougal and Clark County Historical Societies and a graduate of Washington State University in Vancouver. This Fishers Landing retrospective is possible thanks to the generosity of those who lent their expertise, personal stories, and family photographs.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments     6
Introduction     7
First People and Families     9
Life at Fishers and on the Plain     43
Founding a State     69
Timber, Rock, Prunes, and Paper     87
Pioneer Schools Come of Age     107

Editorial Reviews

Bits 'n' Pieces: Fisher's Landing goes way, way back
By Mike Bailey - 07/09/2008
The Columbian

Richenda Fairhurst wonders if Clark County residents understand the role Fisher's Landing played in the development of Southwest Washington.
The area once had its own mailing address and had a substantial population compared with other communities in the area.
In her book "Fishers Landing" (Arcadia Publishing, $19.99), Fairhurst chronicles this part of the county that runs from the Columbia River to Mill Plain Boulevard along the Southeast 164th Avenue corridor.
Fairhurst, the author of a similar book on Washougal, used archival photographs and information gathered in oral histories of ancestors of families who settled the area in the mid-1800s for the book.
"Fisher's Landing was the original settlement," she said. "There was no Camas. Washougal and Vancouver were just getting started when Fisher's Landing was a thriving port."
Fairhurst, who has lived in Camas for 10 years, said her research led her to go against standard spelling of Fisher's with the apostrophe.
"When you look at the way it was spelled then, it was known as Fishers," she said.

From the Publisher