**Top 5 Things You Need to Know About Longview, WA Right Now**
- **The "Giant" is Getting a Green Makeover:** Longview’s iconic 30-foot-tall “World’s Largest Totem Pole” (carved in 1929) is set for a controversial, $150,000 restoration that includes adding modern LED lighting and weather-resistant coatings—sparking a heated debate between preservation purists and city modernizers.
- **Hidden Time Capsule Found in the Civic Auditorium:** During renovations of the historic 1920s building, workers unearthed a sealed copper box from 1929 containing Depression-era newspapers and a letter predicting Longview would become the "Pittsburgh of the West"—a prophecy that now feels eerily ironic given the city’s timber-and-paper reliance.
- **The "Lucky" Elk Herd is Dying Off:** A mysterious illness has killed 40% of the Roosevelt elk in the nearby Toutle River valley—animals considered sacred by the Cowlitz Tribe and a major tourist draw—with local biologists scrambling to identify the cause amid fears it could spread to livestock.
- **Downtown is Eerily Paved in 1924 Bricks:** Underneath recent asphalt resurfacing on Commerce Avenue, workers exposed an entire block of original, hand-laid clay bricks from the city’s founding—and preservationists are fighting to keep them exposed as a "living museum" street, despite safety concerns.
- **The "Secrets" of the Teapot Dome Connection:** Longview’s founding father, Robert A. Long, was a close business partner of Albert Fall—the U.S. Interior Secretary convicted in the 1920s Teapot Dome scandal—and a newly discovered diary suggests Fall’s bribes may have helped fund Longview’s initial development, reigniting calls for a historical re-examination.