Walking Event: Historic

Daily - dawn to dusk. Closed on Christmas. In pioneer days, Centralia was the halfway stopover point for stagecoaches operating between the Columbia River and Seattle. In 1850, J. G. Cochran, coming from Missouri with a young African-American slave named George Washington, filed a donation land claim on the townsite. Later, Cochran freed his slave, adopted him as a son, and in 1852 sold him his claim for $6,000. George built a home and filed a plat for the town of Centerville, offering lots for $10 each, with one lot free to buyers who built houses. In 1891, the population, over 1,000 by then, found its mail confused with that of another Centerville in the state, and the name of the town was changed to Centralia. See residential and shopping areas, murals, outlet stores and historic Borst fort.