Washington Territory

Lat/Long: 47.0000, -120.0000

Washington Territory was created by being separated from Oregon Territory on March 2, 1853. The name proposed for the territory was Columbia, but it was ultimately named in honor of George Washington. Washington Territory went through several additional geographic reorganizations during Abraham Lincoln’s lifetime. Originally comprising modern-day Washington state as well as the northern portion of Idaho and part of western Montana, it absorbed the remainder of Idaho and a portion of western Wyoming when Oregon became a state in 1859. By 1863, it was reduced to the boundaries that now constitutes the current state borders of Washington following a cession of a parcel of land to the Nebraska Territory in 1861, and the creation of the Idaho Territory in 1863. Its capital was located at Olympia.

Edmond S. Meany, (New York: MacMillan, 1909), 155-58, 161-62; “An Act to Establish the Territorial Government of Oregon,” 14 August 1848, 9 (1862):323-31; “An Act to Establish the Territorial Government of Washington,” 2 March 1853, 10 (1855):172-79; “An Act for the Admission of Oregon into the Union,” 14 February 1859, 11 (1859):383-84; “An Act to Provide a Temporary Government for the Territory of Dakota, and to Create the Office of Surveyor General Therein,” 2 March 1861, 12 (1863):239-44; “An Act to Provide a Temporary Government for the Territory of Idaho,” 3 March 1863, 12 (1863):808-14.