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Washington became the 42nd state in 1889. In the
1850s, the state named two of its counties
Pierce and
King, partly
to get attention, and possible early statehood, from
President Pierce and
his Vice President,
William Rufus King. Since then, King County has
officially been renamed for
Martin Luther
King, Jr.
Pre-history
Prior to
the arrival of explorers from Europe,
this region of the Pacific Coast had many established tribes
of Native
Americans, each with its own unique culture. Today, they
are most notable for their totem poles
and their ornately carved canoes and masks. Prominent among
their industries were salmon fishing
and whaling. In the east, nomadic
tribes travelled the land and missionaries such as the
Whitmans settled there. The
earliest known human habitation of Washington took place at
approximately 10,000 BCE, 5,000 to 3,000 years after massive
floods in the Columbia River carved the Columbia Gorge.
Archaeological evidence suggests that the Pacific Northwest
was one of the first populated areas in North America, with
animal and human bones 13,000 years old being found across
the state.
It is
estimated that before the arrival of Euro-Americans in this
region, there were 125 distinct Northwest tribes speaking 50
languages. Throughout the Puget Sound region, there were
numerous small tribes that subsisted primarily on salmon,
halibut, shellfish, and whale. While seafood was a mainstay
of the native diet, cedar trees were the most important
building material. Cedar was used by these tribes to build
both longhouses and large canoes. Even clothing was made
from the bark of cedar trees. The natural abundance of the
region allowed many tribes to develop complex cultures.
It was the
Columbia River tribes, however, that became the richest of
the Washington tribes through their control of Washington
Falls, which was historically the richest salmon fishing
location in the Northwest. These falls on the Columbia River
east of present-day The Dalles,
Oregon were part of the path millions of salmon took to
spawn, and there Native Americans would spear and deep-net
the fish to preserve them for the winter. Some Native
Americans still fish for Columbia River salmon as they once
did, perched on wooden platforms and using dip nets.
At
Ozette, in the
northwest corner of the state, an ancient village was
covered by a mudflow, perhaps triggered by an earthquake
about 500 years ago. More than 50,000 well-preserved
artifacts have been found and cataloged, many of which are
now on display at the Makah Cultural
and Research Center in Neah
Bay. Other sites have also revealed how long people have
been there. Thumbnail-sized quartz knife blades found at the
Hoko River site near Clallam Bay are believed to be 2,500
years old.
Colonization
The first
European record of a landing on the
Washington coast was by Spanish Captain
Don Bruno de Heceta in
1775 on board the Santiago, part of a two-ship
flotilla with the Sonora.
They claimed all the coastal lands up to the
Russian possessions in the north for
Spain.
In 1778,
British explorer
Captain James Cook sighted
Cape Flattery, at the entrance
to the Strait of Juan de
Fuca, but the straits would not be explored until 1789
by Captain Charles
W. Barkley. Further explorations of the straits were
performed by Spanish explorers
Manuel Quimper in 1790 and
Francisco de Eliza in 1791, then by British Captain
George Vancouver in 1792.
The Spanish
Nootka Convention, of 1790,
opened the northwest territory to explorers and trappers
from other nations, most notably Britain and then the United
States. Captain Robert
Gray (for whom Grays
Harbor County is named) then discovered the mouth of the
Columbia river and, beginning
in 1792, he established trade in Sea
Otter pelts. In 1805, the
Lewis and Clark expedition entered the state on
October 10.
American-British Washington
In the 1819
Adams-Onís Treaty, Spain
ceded their original claims to this territory to the United
States. This began a period of
disputed joint-occupancy
by Britain and the U.S. that lasted until
June 15, 1846 when Britain ceded
their claims to this land with the
Treaty of Oregon.
Washington Colony
Due to the
migration along the Oregon Trail,
many settlers wandered north to what is now Washington State
and settled the Puget Sound area.
The first settlement was New Market (now known as
Tumwater) in 1846. In
1853, Washington Territory
was formed from part of Oregon
Territory.
Statehood
Washington
became the
42nd
state in the United States on
November 11, 1889.
Early
prominent industries in the state included agriculture and
lumber. In eastern Washington, the
Yakima Valley became known for its
apple orchards while the growth of wheat using
dry-farming techniques became particularly productive. The
heavy rainfall to the west of the
Cascade Range produced dense forests and the ports along
Puget Sound prospered from the manufacturing and shipping of
lumber products, particularly the
Douglas fir. Other industries that developed in the
state include fishing, salmon canning and mining.
By the turn
of the 20th century, the state of Washington was one of
dangerous repute in the minds of many Americans.
Indisputably as "wild" as the rest of the
wild west, the public image of
Washington merely replaced cowboys with lumberjacks, and
desert with forestland. Sentiments of
socialism were so strong that
Franklin D. Roosevelt's
postmaster general James Farley
quipped in 1936, "There are forty-seven states in the Union,
and the soviet of Washington."
For a long
period Tacoma was noted
for its large smelters where gold, silver, copper and lead
ores were treated. Seattle
was the primary port for trade with Alaska
and the rest of the country and for a time possessed a large
shipbuilding industry. The region around eastern Puget Sound
developed heavy industry during the period including
World War I and
World War II and the
Boeing company became an established
icon in the area.
During the
depression era, a series of
hydroelectric dams were constructed along the Columbia
river as part of a project to increase the production of
electricity. This culminated in
1941 with the completion of the
Grand Coulee Dam, the largest in the United States.
World War II
During
World War II, the Puget Sound area became a focus for war
industries with the Boeing Company producing many of the
nation's heavy bombers and ports
in Seattle,
Bremerton,
Vancouver, and
Tacoma available for the
manufacturing of ships for the war effort. In eastern
Washington, the Hanford Works
atomic energy plant was opened
in 1943 and played a major role in the construction of the
nation's atomic bombs.
Contemporary Washington
On May 18,
1980, following a period of heavy tremors and eruptions, the
northeast face of Mount St.
Helens exploded outward, destroying a large part of the
top of the volcano. This eruption flattened the forests for
many kilometers, killed 57 people, flooded the Columbia
River and its tributaries with ash and mud and blanketed
large parts of Washington in ash, making day look like
night.
On January
30, 2006, Governor Christine Gregoire signed into law
legislation making Washington the 17th state in the nation
to protect gay and lesbian people from discrimination in
housing, lending, and employment, and the 7th state in the
nation to offer these protections to transgendered people.
Initiative activist Tim Eyman filed a referendum that same
day, seeking to put the issue before the state's voters. In
order to qualify for the November election the measure
required a minimum of 112,440 voter signatures by 5:00 p.m.
June 6, 2006. Despite a push from conservative churches
across the state to gather signatures on what were dubbed
"Referendum Sundays," Eyman was only able to gather 105,103
signatures, more than 7,000 signatures short of the minimum.
As a result, the law went into effect on June 7, 2006.
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