KNAPPTON

Abandoned sawmill town overlooking the Columbia River, south of Naselle, on Highway 401.

In 1868, Portland businessman Jabez Burrell Knapp, found suitable rocks for the manufacture of cement near the Columbia River home of Job Lamely. Knapp and partners purchased the waterfront site from Francis Hopkinson, a music teacher, and in 1868-69 built a large kiln and a barrel factory to package the cement. Knapp called his manufacturing settlement Cementville. The raw material for making cement proved limited however, and the venture failed after two years.

Knapp next organized the Columbia River Manufacturing Company and went into the sawmill business. He continued to make cement and barrels but those works were scaled down. In 1870 Knapp quit his Portland business and moved permanently to the settlement he now called Knappton (contraction of Knapp Town).

The name was confirmed when a post office was established April 13, 1871; it was discontinued Nov. 15, 1943.

In 1876, the mill was sold to Captain Asa M. Simpson, who eventually sold his interest to the Brix brothers Grays Bay Logging Company in 1909.

The onset of the depression crippled the Knappton mill but a mill fire in 1936 closed it for good and destroyed most of the homes on the adjoining hillside as well.