Winlock, Washington

How Winlock is governed

Form of government not yet listed.

0 of 14 positions listed. Gray dashed boxes are placeholders waiting for a name.

• Mayor

  Executive

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  The city's chief elected official. Presides over the executive branch, proposes the budget and represents the city.

  • City Manager / Administrator

    Executive

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    The professional administrator who runs day-to-day operations (in some cities appointed by the council instead of the mayor).

    • Police Chief

      Administration & departments

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      Leads the police department.

    • Fire Chief

      Administration & departments

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      Leads the fire and emergency services department.

    • Public Works Director

      Administration & departments

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      Streets, water, sewer, and city buildings.

    • Finance Director

      Administration & departments

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      The budget, taxes, and city accounts.

    • Planning & Zoning Director

      Administration & departments

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      Land use, zoning, building permits.

    • Parks & Recreation Director

      Administration & departments

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      Parks, programs, and public facilities.

• City Council

  Legislative

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  The elected body that passes ordinances, sets the tax rate and approves the budget.

  • City Clerk

    Administration & departments

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    Keeps the official records, runs meeting agendas and, often, local elections.

  • City Attorney

    Administration & departments

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    The city's lawyer; advises officials and prosecutes ordinance violations.

  • Boards & Commissions

    Legislative

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    Citizen advisory bodies, such as planning, zoning appeals and library boards.

• Municipal Court

  Judicial

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  Hears traffic, ordinance and other minor cases.

  • Municipal Judge

    Judicial

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    Presides over the municipal court.

Website

winlockwa.govoffice2.com

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Population over time

From 1,339 in 2010 to 1,472 in 2020 (+9.9%).

History

Origin

Winlock began as a Northern Pacific Railroad construction camp called Wheeler's Camp in c. 1871. The railroad was then in the process of extending its line from Kalama to Tacoma, Washington. Dr. C. C. Pagett, an early resident, donated the land for the townsite. In 1873, he named it for General William Winlock Miller of Olympia, a man of some renown in the area. Miller had promised to give a school bell to the town if it were to be named after him. The town was incorporated on February 28, 1883.

Early economy

Lumbering was the initial economic driver. A number of sawmills were established beginning in the late 1800s. In the late 1920s there were four mills in operation, employing 350 men and producing over 30 million board feet of fir lumber annually.

Agriculture developed in the early 1900s with the impetus on the raising of poultry and the production of eggs. A Finnish immigrant, Impi Erving, began as a poulterer in Winlock in the 1900s, out-earning her husband Jacob's farm and cattle business. Jacob installed a kerosene-powered incubator in a bedroom of their house and the family was producing 500,000 eggs annually in a few years. Jacob Irving later constructed a 40,000 egg capacity temperature-controlled incubator system in Winlock in the early 1920s. Business entrepreneur John Marcotte opened the Cowlitz Produce Company at Winlock's Leonard Building in 1913, selling eggs from local farmers. The business reached $2,000,000 (equivalent to $32,142,857 in 2025) in sales by the 1920s.

A branch of the Washington Cooperative Egg & Poultry Association (WCEPA) was opened in Winlock in 1920. The organization constructed and operated out of a large building in Winlock that remains in the present day at the north end of town near the railroad tracks. The facility housed grain storage bins and accommodated poultry processing. The WCEPA recorded 175 local farmers as part of its membership. Several other hatcheries were located in the town. More than 750,000 baby chicks were produced during the 1928 season.

In 1922, The Lewis County Advocate noted that the only American city that produced more eggs than Winlock was Petaluma, California. In a single weekend in 1923, Winlock shipped 38,400 dozen eggs to New York state. Winlock at that time was touted as the "Egg and Poultry Capital of the World" and was also known as "the egg nest of the West".

Due to an increase of raising chickens locally around the country during the 1930s, as well as more reliance on trucking for delivery, larger hatcheries, and processing facilities, Winlock's egg production began to "lose ground". By the 1950s, egg farms in the town had considerably waned. The Winlock-based Washington Cooperative Egg & Poultry Association shuttered in 1963. Three hatcheries and six producers were reported to be operational by 1971; one remaining hatchery was noted to exist in the Winlock area in 1996.

21st century

A fire in Winlock's downtown area consumed the city's historic Warne's Drug Store building in late 2022. The structure was built in 1911 but burned down the following year. Rebuilt soon thereafter, the building housed the now-defunct Winlock News and Winlock Phone Company, as well as other various businesses for the next century. At the time of loss, the location was used as a hostel for six years.

An annexation proposal by the city to incorporate Winlock's urban growth area (UGA) was dismissed in 2023 by the Lewis County Supreme Court over a combination of protests from residents in the UGA and the questions of statutory and filing periods and connected legal authority. The UGA, formed from a county contract in 2006, is recorded as containing 1,335 acres (540 ha) with a population of 335 residents. A citizen-led petition for the proposal to be reviewed by the Washington State Boundary Review Board for Lewis County exceeded the minimum voting requirements and a subsequent unanimous approval of the annexation by the board occurred in August of that year. The annexation was adopted by a majority vote of the Winlock city council that autumn.

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Other cities in Washington

• Seattle 737,015
• Spokane 228,989
• Tacoma 219,346
• Vancouver 190,915
• Bellevue 151,854
• Kent 136,588
• Everett 110,629
• Renton 106,785

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