Riffe Lake Overlook

Riffe Lake Overlook. East Lewis County. It used to be that you could throw a stick near the headwaters of the Cowlitz River beyond Packwood and it would float past here, to the Columbia River, eventually ending in the Pacific Ocean. Native Americans and pioneers alike not only used the Cowlitz as a transportation route for themselves and their products, but also, as a food source from the mighty salmon runs that migrate yearly up the Cowlitz River to spawn., As you look out over Riffe Lake, imagine that this was once the site of two pioneering communities, Riffe and Kosmos. In 1968, construction of the Mossyrock Dam flooded the last remnants of these communities along the Cowlitz., The town of Riffe was established in 1898 on the Floyd L. Riffe homestead, located five miles southwest of Morton. In 1904, Charles W. Hopkinson built a sawmill and established a post office, creating the city of Kosmos. Riffe and Kosmos reached their heyday in the 1940s when local railroad-tie mills and logging companies thrived., This marker erected in honor of the 1995 Lewis County Sesquicentennial through the support of Tacoma Public Utilities, the U.S. Forest Service and East Lewis County.