One of many lumber towns that were once on the Chehalis-South Bend branch of Northern Pacific Railway. The town was once two miles south of the present location, and was called Salal. It moved when Leudinghaus Brothers of Chehalis built a saw mill at the present site. Its name, supplied by the Northern Pacific Railway at the suggestion of W. C. Albee, who was superintendent of the South Bend branch is mythological. It is for the wood nymph or dryad, who lived in oak trees. Albee figured that the dryad might get used to living in the local fir and cedar trees. By 1941, the adjacent hills were a scarred wasteland of silver-gray snags and forest wreckage—the residue left by high-speed logging methods.