Grays Harbour

North of the Columbia River, Grays Harbor forms a broad estuary fed by the Chehalis and several smaller rivers. Lower Chehalis communities lived around the bay and in the valleys beyond it. In May 1792, the American fur trader Robert Gray brought the #italic Columbia#! across the entrance and encountered people who were probably Chehalis. Gray called the harbor Bullfinch, but George Vancouver's chart later used the captain's own name.