- Clark County — Thumbnail History (historylink.org)
Local history buffs call Clark County the “Cradle of Pacific Northwest History,” reflecting the importance of the 628-square-mile southwestern Washington county as the scene of key historical developments. Here the Lewis and Clark expedition arrived in 1805, the British Hudson’s Bay Company established Fort Vancouver in 1825, and the town of Vancouver was incorporated in 1857. The county’s location first made it an entrepôt (trading center), then an agricultural area. The region developed in agriculture, lumber, and fishing, and later in shipbuilding and aluminum. In recent times, energy from hydroelectric projects on the Lewis and Columbia rivers has fueled development as a manufacturing center.
northbound on Interstate 5
Now let me be clear: I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power.… The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him. But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors…and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.
Barack Obama, Remarks Against Going to War with Iraq (2 October 2002)
southbound on Interstate 5
- Clark County, Washington (Wikipedia)
Clark County is the southernmost county in the U.S. state of Washington. As of the 2020 census, the population was 503,311, making it Washington’s fifth-most populous county. Its county seat and largest city is Vancouver. It was the first county in Washington, first named Vancouver County in 1845 before being renamed for William Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1849. It was created by the Provisional Government of Oregon in Oregon Country on August 20, 1845, and at that time covered the entire present-day state. Clark County is the third-most-populous county in the Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro Metropolitan Statistical Area, and is across the Columbia River from Portland, Oregon.
