St. Helen: a lumber town turned lake town (and the Bluegill Festival)

St. Helen, on the east side of the county, has a deeper history than its quiet size lets on. In the 1870s the lumberman Henry Stephens built a mill here. He ran one of the largest, best-equipped lumber operations in the state. Within about fourteen years his mills cut more than a billion board feet of pine, hauled out by river and rail. When the big pine was gone, the mills closed or moved on. St. Helen made itself over as a lake town on the shore of Lake St. Helen.

Today it’s a small, easygoing place known for fishing and an affordable lake lifestyle. Its signature event is the Bluegill Festival, held each summer since the late 1940s. It’s a friendly small-town weekend with a parade, fishing tournaments, carnival games, and kids’ activities. A bit of local trivia: the actor Charlton Heston spent part of his boyhood in St. Helen, while his father worked at a local sawmill.

If you’re drawn to a laid-back lake town with real roots, St. Helen fits. Just expect one busy weekend when the Bluegill Festival comes around.