Ryderwood is a small community just outside of Lewis County in Cowlitz County. It is close to Vader. Ryderwood is a retirement community and you must be 55 years or older to live there. They have been a city for 100 years and are having their centennial so we included a little history.
In a new history book with the forward written by Cowlitz County Historical Museum Director Joseph Govednik it said "Our Ryderwood which many residents contributed to it talks about how Ryderwood came about. Ryderwood is unique in that it has two histories: one as an instrumental part of logging of the Long-Bell Company's desire to have a logging camp hospitable to family men, and the other as one of the first designated retirement communities in the United States in 1953."
"The first history is deeply connected with the decision to build 'The World's Largest Sawmill' on the Columbia RIver and RA Long (A businessman) insistence on creating a planned modern city for the workers of his enormous mill," he said. "To feed the mill, the community of Ryderwood, named for Long-Bell timber cruiser Bill Ryder, was created in the heart of one of the richest tracks of old growth forest where the logging crews could live and work with their families. Family men, in R.A. Long's opinions were preferred and thus a community was built to support the households with shopping, service stations, theater, a school, a medical clinic, and a house of worship. What was thought to be a timber resource that would take 80-100 years to harvest ended up taking just three decades to deplete, resulting in the birth of Ryderwood's second history as a retirement community."
"In the retirement years, the town fought for its existence against it's founding company, later against corporate greed and still later against itself," he said. "Each fight was a fight to maintain its unique lifestyle. In each case, as a logging town and as a retirement community, it was an experiment that was successful but not easy. As a logging town, which even boasted a jewelry story and a 58 room hotel, they had to get the big trees logged at a rate of two-mile long log trains per day to feed Longview world's largest sawmills. Pay was top notch on a national scale, but the work was rugged and dangerous."
"As a retirement community, even the state governor, as did the national magazines, watched Ryderwood," he said. "The town held the nation's attention for some time as residents, promoters, and skeptics waited to see how this new experiment in community living would fare. Ryderwood holds the record as the oldest successful retirement community in the United States. This is a remarkable success for a community that was designed for a much different purpose."
Ryderwood has always been a unique community, when you drive through you see people smiling and having a good time. It may be a retirement community, but they are active as ever!