Excerpt from Agricultural, Manufacturing and Commercial Resources and Capabilities of Washington, 1901

Older communities in the eastern states are apt to think of the State of Washington as being so young that its history is only in the formative period. Of course, in some respects this is true. For three dozen years the commonwealth was on pro bation as a territory, and since that period there has been but a single dozen of years of statehood. During those four dozen years the nation has passed through some of its most important epochs of history, such as the culmination of the Kansas Nebraska struggle, the great Civil War and the consequent period of reconstruction. Washington was too young and too remote to experience a very large or very active participation in those stirring events, and yet there was some contact with that portion of national history, and back of that period there lies a history that must not be overlooked. Besides the thrilling record of explorations by land and by sea, the settlers passed through the trials, dangers and sufferings incident to all occasions when civil ized races have come in contact and into conflict with savage or barbarous races occupying a desired region. In these experi ences of the pioneer settlers of Washington may be traced the experiences or history of the successive settlements of America's receding frontier. As Kentucky was a colony of Virginia and her neighbors, as Ohio was a colony of New England and Vir ginia, so Washington was a colony of numerous eastern states. A recent French writer has said that a colony is to history what a mountain is to geology. It brings past forms to view. From such a View point, the study of our own State history is sure to be of interest to thoughtful readers, and it is likewise sure to grow in importance as the knowledge of the broader national topics deepens through constant research.

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