A history of Ilwaco,
then and now
Postcards, papers and photographs of Ilwaco from public archives, woven together by decade. Neighbors fill in the gaps.
The story
from WikipediaRead it all ↗Ilwaco, initially given the name Unity, was first settled by Henry Feister in 1851, and was named for the Lower Chinook leader Elwahko Jim, whose indigenous name was [ʔɪlwəkʷo], the son in law of Chief Comcomly. Ilwaco was officially incorporated on December 16, 1890. A narrow gauge railway, Ilwaco Railway and Navigation Company, ran for over thirty years. Similarly to the nearby city of Astoria, Oregon, and the surrounding communities, Ilwaco historically had a significant population of Finnish immigrants.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Timeline
built from the dates on the items belowFinish Ilwaco’s story
Most archives stop around 1920. The photos from after that are in family albums, not libraries.
1 of 10 decades since 1900 have photos 🔁Retake an old viewGeneral Canby at Ilwaco ca 1880, 1880: stand where they stood+15 📦Share a family photoSign in to add one+10Famous people from Ilwaco
See all 2 →Ilwaco, decade by decade
1960s
1990s
2 historic places in Ilwaco
2 places in Ilwaco are on the National Register of Historic Places, the country’s official list of buildings and places worth saving.
Where they are
When they were listed
Then & now
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as General Canby at Ilwaco ca 1880 (1880) and it appears here side by side.
🔁 Retake this view · +15Stories next door
nearby towns’ historyFrom Wikimedia Commons (6). Images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.