[3] The community is home to an annual Cheese Days festival that celebrates the town's dairy history.

[5] Simon Plomondon (or Plamondon), an employee of the Hudson Bay Company, settled in the area in 1820, taking up a donation land claim, marrying a Cowlitz Indian chief's (Chief Schanewah) daughter Thas-e-muth (Veronica) and becoming the first white man to settle in what would later be known as Southwest Washington.

[6] The early inhabitancy was not the first non-Indigenous settlement in the area, as the Pugets Sound Agricultural Company opened and maintained the Cowlitz Farm in 1839, near Toledo.

In the mid-1850s during the Puget Sound War, volunteers constructed a blockhouse at Cowlitz Landing amid fears of potential Native American attacks; no combat at the fort took place.

[7] By the 1850s, a settlement known as Cowlitz Landing was formed after passengers of the river began disembarking during their journeys around the area.

The Cowlitz River changed course, eventually removing any remaining signs of the early community, and a new landing was established at the Tokul Creek junction.

In 1879, Captain Kellogg decided the area was conducive to build a town and began to purchase lands with that intent.

[8] According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 0.40 square miles (1.04 km2), all of it land.

The residents of Toledo hold an annual "Big Toledo Community Meeting", or known locally as the "Big Meeting", to discuss ideas and plans for future events, to be informed of current projects within the town, and to hear about updates by local community and charitable organizations.

The meeting began in 2011 as a way to invigorate the town after a large fire devastated a downtown historic building.

Recent festivals and celebrations, such as a Santa Quad Parade and the New Year's Eve Giant Cheese Ball Drop, were developed based on proposals from the meeting.

[14] Toledo celebrates the city's dairy farming history by hosting an annual Cheese Days festival, usually held in July.

[15][4] Since 1985, the festival has a grand marshal, titled as the Big Cheese, bestowed to an older and long-term resident of the community as an honor in recognition for their volunteer efforts.

Despite large enrollment and funding figures in the 1960s, St. Mary's shuttered in June 1973 after severe loss of registrations due to negative economic conditions in the region.

Artwork in the high school includes two Remington bronzes, an oil portrait of David Ike, last full-blooded Cowlitz Indian and several carvings by indigenous artists.

[27] The $25 million construction project was completed in April 2022 followed by a ribbon cutting ceremony, unveilings of Native American artworks, and a performance by the Cowlitz Indian Tribe Drum Group.

[28] In 2021, the school district, required by a Washington state law banning Native American mascots and imagery enacted that year, changed its nickname to the Riverhawks.

Also known as Ed Carlson Memorial Field, the airfield is county owned but managed by a local commission.