Neighborhood Focus: Timmen Road/La Center Bottoms

By Scott Hewitt, The Columbian, Vancouver, Wash.

May 23–LA CENTER- Can you imagine Shirley Temple breaking bread with John Dillinger? How about Laurel and Hardy sharing a -rustic cabin with Roy Rogers and his horse?

How about Ol’ Blue Eyes, Frank Sinatra, crooning about doing it his way while warming his buns by the hearth?

That’s all fantasy, of course, but what’s true is that all these famous and infamous folks — well, maybe not the horse — used to stop off to dine, and relax, and snooze at what was then the Summit Grove Inn.

That was when Timmen Road was the Pacific Highway, the best way to travel between Portland and Seattle. But this spot was a restaurant and waystation long before that. Local historians peg the original opening date of Headley’s Camp as 1840. Close to two centuries later, the Summit Grove Lodge has been rebuilt several times and remains open for business as a rental facility.

"There’s nothing more beautiful than when this place is decorated for a wedding and the birds are singing," said Linda Tracy, a La Center city councilwoman who also works as the historic spot’s event coordinator.

Well, that’s debatable — only because just down the hill from Summit Grove is the La Center Bottoms, a 314-acre wonderland of wetlands, hiking trails and wildlife that’s considered the jewel of the city.

La Center worked with Clark County, Clark Public Utilities and the state to create a streetside city park that serves as a gateway into that sprawling greenery.

The East Fork of the Lewis River snakes up from the south and forms the west boundary of the bottoms. Just up the hill from there is a true local landmark: the grave of settler John Pollock, who claimed 160 acres of land here in 1850. Pollock was a soldier and became a member of the first territorial legislature and wrote our earliest school laws.

His land and grave site are privately owned, so look from Pollock Road, but don’t touch.

- Scott Hewitt

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Copyright (c) 2007, The Columbian, Vancouver, Wash.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

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