A county by county look at all thirty-nine counties in Washington state, with photographs by the author. Part of a proposed coffee table book: Evergreen–A Photographic Portrait of Washington’s Thirty-Nine Counties.
Introducing Snohomish County Washington On January 14th, 1861, the Washington Territorial Legislature took a portion of mainland Island County to create Snohomish County. The first U.S. Census that looked just at Snohomish County (1870) counted 599 residents. Today, with a 2019 estimated population of 822,083, it is the third largest Washington county by population. In…
An Introduction to Klickitat County Washington The Washington Territorial Legislature created Klickitat County on December 20th, 1859. To do this, they took land along the Columbia River from Walla Walla County. The County’s name comes from the people native to the area, the Klickitat Tribe. The long, relatively narrow county covers 1,904 square miles of…
Introduction to Kitsap County On January 16th, 1857, the Washington Territorial Legislature created Slaughter County. To do this, they took land from King and Jefferson Counties, largely on the Kitsap Peninsula and neighboring Bainbridge Island. They named Port Madison on Bainbridge Island as County Seat. Today Kitsap County Washington is largely unchanged in area, although…
Introduction to Clallam County, Washington On April 26th, 1854, the Washington Territorial Legislature created Clallam County by taking the northwestern corner of Jefferson County. New Dungeness was, at that time, the largest community in the new county, so the Legislature named it County Seat. It held that position until 1890, when a county-wide election chose…
Introduction to Walla Walla County On the same day they created Wahkiakum County, April 25th, 1854, the Washington Territorial Legislature created Walla Walla County. At that point, Walla Walla County covered all of Washington east of the Cascades. It included what is now northern Idaho and western Montana. Over the next two decades, the legislature…
INTRODUCTION TO WAHKIAKUM COUNTY, WASHINGTON On April 25th, 1854, just four days after they created Cowlitz County, the Washington Territorial Legislature cut off the western end of that county to create Wahkiakum County, Washington. They named this new county for the native people and their chief who had lived in the area for centuries. Chief…
Introduction to Cowlitz County, Washington Cowlitz County, in southwestern Washington, came into being on April 21st, 1854. Depending on which source you reference, the County land came from Clark County, Lewis County, or was an original county for Washington Territory. Certainly the county lines changed a great deal in the early days. What…
After a hearty breakfast in Republic, it’s time to set off for Sedro Woolley, on the other side of the Cascade Mountains. The map below shows only a portion of the drive as the North Cascades Highway just opened this week, and Google Maps hasn’t updated itself. It will not allow me to plot a…
What would you like for a road trip? Hagerty, the leading company for insuring classic cars, sends me a newsletter daily, with several articles in each. This morning’s post had a question that captured my imagination. Largely because it’s something I’ve been dreaming for close to five years now. A road trip across north central…
There’s a bit of a conundrum in the title of this post. You can’t drive across Jefferson County. One of four counties created by the Oregon Territorial Legislature in 1852, Jefferson County originally included all of the northern end of the Olympic Peninsula. With the creation of Clallam County sixteen months later, western Jefferson County…
