The natural prairie roughly lies along the west side of the Cowlitz River, north of Toledo, east of Interstate 5 in Washington, and South of U.S. Route 12.
By 1833, Plamondon and François Faignant were successful subsistence farmers soon joined by Joseph Rochbrune and Michel Coutenoir, after also having gained permissions.
By 1841, the Wilkes expedition reported « a Catholic priest belonging to the Columbia Missionary established among the small community here which consists of half a dozen Canadians who have married Indians & half-breeds”.
Retired Canadian fur traders with Cree, Ojibwe, Nipissing, Abenaki, and Iroquois ancestry continued to settle and marry into the local Cowlitz and Chinook tribes.
Twenty early settlers were installed by 1850s by which time the Cowlitz Farm was ramping down after the expiry of the Russian-American Company HBC contract.