Title: Washington State
Headings: Washington State
Washington State
Content: Relations between the races were often troubled and race riots occurred in Seattle, Tacoma and smaller communities. Washington entered the Union as the 42nd state on November 11, 1889. Elisha P. Ferry, a former territorial official, became the first state governor. That year witnessed major fires in Seattle and Spokane, both of which rebuilt their cores with brick and stone structures. Seattle in particular profited greatly by the discovery of gold in the Klondike in 1897. The growing community on Puget Sound became the chief point of departure and the major supplier of those headed for the gold fields. Development also was occurring across the Cascades where early irrigation projects enabled orchard and wheat ventures to replace cattle and sheep in some areas. At the turn of the century, the western portion of the state was booming from the development of trade, shipbuilding and lumber. This prosperity was celebrated in 1909 in Seattle in the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, an early world’s fair. Farmers in the east, however, were plagued by low prices and suffered under the thumbs of what they regarded as predatory railroads.