Yacolt and Amboy are outliers in the scheme of Clark County. Amboy fits the stereotype of small towns, and is smaller (naturally because it is the farthest community before you hit Gilford Pinchot National Forest. Its main street is comprised of two or three dilapidated buildings, and houses that are so old and far outside the city they still used wood burning stoves. The entire town had a hazy smoke to it as I drove through it.
Yacolt perplexed me the most. As I drove into the town it was painfully obvious the main reason it was there was as a stop on the rail line for the lumber industry. The main stretch of road paralleled a still in use train track for the fizzling industry. The restored train station was beautiful, and the railroad was obviously a source of pride for the town. Not much different from my hometown of Thurston.
The part which made me do a double take was the development that had taken place on the eastern side of the tracks. The tracks literally separated the "new town" and the "old town". Brand new houses, built most likely in the early 2000's, were arranged in typical subdivision style, as a miniature place to raise 2.5 kids. The houses looked exactly the same: all white siding, all with a garage, all with a white picket fence. Its one of those things that looks so out of place in a small town with houses that have been there forever. (Thurston also has this, although it's development consisted of really nice double-wides and carports.)
West of the tracks, each house had a history. It was like the walls and the architecture of the structures were literally speaking to you as you drove by. The roofs were aged, the chimneys with a small stream of smoke coming out of them. And porches! Some of the houses had beautiful porches, something you don't find in the modern design of houses.
This contrast baffled me while I was driving through the town. I had never seen such a shocking developmentally divided town. I wonder what the residents though of it. Was it a nuisance that these people had moved in and completely redeveloped an area of the town so quickly? Or was it that the town was happy to have more residents move in, and welcomed them with open arms into their community? Have the integrated? If only I could live there and get to know the town...
Regionalism and my definition of rural have both changed as a result of this chapter of my life. I have come to realize that regions are much more difficult, and significantly easier, to define. The "Northwest" has so many commonalities across its urban and rural areas. The lives people live, the industry that ties them together, the general increased accessibility and attitude of acceptance towards new ideas. It pretty much jives with all of the people I have met here.
Rural areas encompass much more than just farmland also. I loved studying the "industrialized rural areas" of America in many of my college classes, and learning how industrialization is not only limited to the city. But I never lived the experience. Most of the rural areas I have seen to this day are financially impoverished, and suffer from brain drain to the extreme. The very life source of many communities I've seen has simply disappeared, for better or for worse.
Yacolt and Amboy defy this. They prove that logging is, albeit diminishing, still a very strong income earner for local residents. The industry holds seemingly responsible view on many things.
After Amboy, the sun was setting, but I decided to press on, to get some shots of it from Gilford Pinchot. All of this reflection about industry and identity shows how we can come to get views such as this:
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