At the very end of Washington State Route 506 lies a tiny, well-kept community that bills itself as the town with two histories. And both of those histories are pretty darned amazing. Heard of Ryderwood, Washington? Neither had I until I was approached by a representative of their historical society. And the story she told me had me fascinated…I decided I had to visit to learn more. Ryderwood is located about halfway between Centralia and Longview in western Washington, just a bit west of the I-5 corridor. A Google satellite map of the area shows a small brownish patch at the top of Cowlitz County just below the Lewis County line, surrounded on three of four sides by inches and inches of deep green forests. In fact, that’s exactly why Ryderwood was created there in the first place…for the timber.