Title: Washington State
Headings: Washington State
Washington State
Content: 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. Protests developed under the banners of the Grangers and the Farmers Alliances. The Populist Party also experienced some success, yielding the governorship to John Rankin Rogers in 1896. Washington workers turned increasingly to union representation in the closing decades of the 19th century, which established the base for later charges of labor radicalism. In 1909, a major confrontation occurred in Spokane where the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or more popularly, the Wobblies) staged speeches to protest unfair actions by employment agents. The city responded by arresting the speakers and protestors, but the IWW drew national attention by shipping in replacement demonstrators by rail.