On July 8, 1864, Secretary of the Interior J. P. Usher creates the Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation, located at the confluence of the Black and Chehalis rivers in southwestern Washingto...
On May 16, 1864, the first Mercer Girls from the East Coast reach Seattle. Seattle resident Asa Mercer (1839-1917) has recruited the group to provide teachers for the young community and in order to a...
On October 25, 1864 at 4 p.m., the Western Union Telegraph line reaches Seattle from San Francisco and the East Coast. The following day, the town receives the first dispatches over the line. The tele...
On November 7, 1864, two Snohomish Indians kill William and Abigail Casto in their home in Squak Valley (now Issaquah.) Also killed is John Halstead, a housemate. The assailants are in turn killed by ...
On December 25, 1864, Job Carr arrives at the future site of Tacoma on Commencement Bay. He will file a 168-acre claim to land at a site the Nisqually and Puyallup Peoples call Shubahlup or sheltered ...
On January 14, 1865, the Territory of Washington Legislature incorporates the Town of Seattle for the first time, adopting a city charter that puts the municipal government in the hands of a board of ...
On January 19, 1865, Democrats in the Territorial Legislature vote to eliminate Skamania County and to split its territory between Klickitat County and Clarke County (as it was spelled at the time). T...
On January 20, 1865, the Walla Walla Library Association is incorporated and becomes the first library established for the public in the City of Walla Walla. A group of Walla Walla professionals, inte...
On January 21, 1865, the Washington Territorial Legislature establishes Yakima County. Yakima County includes most of the land in the former Ferguson County, created in 1863 and dissolved three days ...
On February 7, 1865, the Seattle Board of Trustees passes Ordinance No. 5, calling for the removal of Indians from the town. Ten years after local tribes signed the Treaty of Point Elliott, ceding mos...
In March 1865, pioneer Ezra Meeker (1830-1928) plants hop vine cuttings on his farm in the Puyallup Valley. The plants flourish and Meeker continues to expand his plantings over the years. By the earl...
In April 1865, William Nesbit Smith begins a school with 24 students in his store, located across the Touchet River from a new mill being set up by Sylvester M. Wait (d. 1891), in the emerging town of...
On April 11, 1865, word reaches Olympia, Washington, that on the afternoon of April 9, 1865, Robert E. Lee (1807-1870), Commander of the Confederate Army, surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885), ...
At about 1 p.m. on April 15, 1865, Olympia and Seattle receive news by telegraph that U.S. President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) has died from an assassin's shot he received the night before. Later th...
On the last day of April 1865, Mary Low Sinclair and her one-month-old son Alvin, board the small, unfinished steamer Mary Woodruff in Port Madison, Kitsap County, for a journey across Puget Sound and...
In May 1865, Sylvester M. Wait (d. 1891) begins operating a flour mill in the midst of farmland clustered around the convergence of the Touchet River and Coppei Creek in Walla Walla County. The previo...
On July 14, 1865, George Plummer makes a homestead claim on 160 acres of land that would become a business district in West Seattle located at California Avenue SW and SW Admiral Way. In 1869, he rece...
On August 13, 1865, a lay vestry organizes Trinity Parish, Seattle's first Episcopal parish, which builds its first church at 3rd Avenue and Jefferson Street in 1870. It was destroyed in Seattle's Gre...
In 1866, King County settlers petition the Territorial Delegate to Congress, Arthur Denny (1822-1899), against the establishment of a reservation for the Duwamish tribe on the Black River. The Su...
In 1866, brothers William, George, and John Hume, along with Andrew Hapgood, begin operating a small cannery on a scow at Eagle Cliff in eastern Wahkiakum County near the Cowlitz County line in southw...
On June 7, 1866, Chief Seattle, the leader of the Duwamish and Suquamish tribes in whose honor Seattle was named, dies at Old Man House in north Kitsap County.
On December 26, 1866, a problem arises between American and British forces jointly occupying San Juan Island when the British commander asks the American commander to return an English deserter who is...
During 1867, the Lake Washington Company opens the first coal mine at Newcastle. Newcastle is located in King County, east of Lake Washington and south of present-day Bellevue.
The opening of a post office is an important marker of the beginning of a community. On January 21, 1867, the White River Post Office (later O'Brien) is established. Lewis McMillan is appointed postma...