Courtesy Clark County Historical Museum
The Clark County Fiar has been around a long time, but just how long is that?
I am tired of talking about the newspaper business this week, but I like trivia. In the hope you like trivia, too, I cooked up a Clark County quiz. I tried to make a couple of the questions really tough!
1. Which local school lies the farthest north?
A) Green Mountain School; b) Woodland High School; C) Amboy Middle School; D) La Center High School.
2. How many years have there been a Clark County Fair?
A) 74 years; B) 111 years; C) 151 years; D) Since Dr. John McLoughlin picked a peck of pippins from the Old Apple Tree.
3. What used to be located at the Navigation Center on Grand Boulevard?
A) The Clark County Jail; B) The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s regional office; C) A Fred Meyer store; D) Both B and C.
4. Which of the following is not a local plain?
A) Mill Plain; B) Fourth Plain; C) Fifth Plain; D) Pearson Plain.
5. What historic event took place at Vancouver’s Pearson Field?
A) The Wright Brothers founded a pilot school; B) The end of the first nonstop trans-polar flight; C) The start of the first trans-Pacific flight; D) A space shuttle landing.
6. Which of these Clark County structures is the oldest?
A) Fort Vancouver; B) The Grant House; C) Cedar Creek Grist Mill; D) Providence Academy.
7. The Great Wall is in China, but which of these is in Clark County?
A) The China Ditch; B) The Limoges China Factory; C) The China Syndrome; D) All the tea in China.
8. Fire District 6’s new $9 million fire station primarily serves which neighborhood?
A) Orchards; B) Heisson; C) Salmon Creek; D) Fern Prairie.
9. Which former Vancouver mayor lived in a mansion on Southwest Evergreen Boulevard?
A) John P. Kiggins; B) Royce Pollard; C) Tim Leavitt; D) None of the above.
10. What is the highest point in Clark County?
A) Larch Mountain; B) Lacamas Heights; C) Beacon Rock; D) Mount St. Helens.
The answers
1. The Green Mountain School is the farthest north in Clark County and is even north of Woodland High School, which is in Cowlitz County.
2. This year was to be the 152nd Clark County Fair until it was canceled due to COVID-19. I once found out the hard way that if you write “152nd annual fair” you will have to write a correction; no fair was held in 1942 due to the war.
3. The Navigation Center was originally a Fred Meyer home improvement center, then was later used by the Department of Fish and Wildlife for its regional headquarters. Fred Meyer moved to Grand Central and the government office moved to Ridgefield.
4. I made up the name Pearson Plain. It has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?
5. Russian pilot Valery Chkalov and his crew hoped to have enough gas to reach San Francisco, but had to end the first nonstop trans-polar flight in Vancouver in 1937.
6. Fort Vancouver is a reconstruction, which makes the Grant House the oldest. Built in 1849, it was standing when Lt. U.S. Grant lived here, but in another building. Providence Academy (1873) and the grist mill (1876) were built while Grant was president.
7. Named for the laborers who dug it, the China Ditch still drains farmland along Northeast 172nd Avenue on the way from Vancouver to Hockinson. It empties into Fifth Plain Creek.
8. Fire District 6’s new station is located in Salmon Creek.
9. Ha! Trick question! There are no “southwest” addresses in Vancouver or unincorporated Clark County. Subtract one point from your score if I tricked you.
10. Larch Mountain stands tallest: 3,480 feet. Beacon Rock is a diminutive 848 feet and is in Skamania County to boot. So is dyspeptic Mount St. Helens.
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