Centralia
Centralia (formerly Centreville) is a city in Lewis County, Washington, United States which was founded in 1875 by George Washington and his wife Mary Jane Washington.George Washington was the son of an enslaved man of African decent and an Englishwoman, but was raised by the white couple Mr and Mrs Cochran, who George’s mother had left him with.
Washington began a claim in 1852 where the Skookumchuck River joins the Chehalis River, but because Oregon Territory had passed a law barring settlement by African Americans, James and Anna Cochran filed a claim under the Donation Land Claim Act for 640 acres in the area. Once the claim was proved up by four years residence, and ‘Washington Territory’, had come into existence, which allowed African American ownership, the Cochrans deeded the property to Washington.
George and his wife went on to become great civic leaders who looked after the best interests of the town and Centralia’s most needy, time and again putting people above profit and leaving a legacy to be proud of.
