How Washington State Got Its Name (It Was Almost Columbia)

Washington is named for George Washington, but the settlers who asked Congress for a territory of their own wanted to call it Columbia, and a congressman from Kentucky changed it during the debate in 1853. The switch took one motion on the House floor.

The settlers wanted “Columbia”

In the early 1850s, everything from California’s northern border up to British territory at the 49th parallel was Oregon Territory. The settlers north of the Columbia River wanted out. They talked it up at Fourth of July celebrations in Olympia in 1851 and 1852, and then held two conventions, at Cowlitz and Monticello, where they wrote memorials, a kind of formal petition, to Congress.

According to Hubert Howe Bancroft’s 1890 history, the Monticello memorial asked for a new territory “to be called the Territory of Columbia.” Oregon’s delegate in Congress, Joseph Lane, took up the settlers’ request. In December 1852 he got the House to ask its Committee on Territories for a bill creating a new territory “by the name of Columbia Territory,” as Edmond Meany, a University of Washington historian, tells it in his 1923 book on the state’s place names.

The name made sense. The Columbia River ran right along the new territory’s southern edge, and it had carried that name since May 1792, when the American captain Robert Gray sailed into it and named it after his ship, the Columbia.

The change on the House floor

On February 8, 1853, the House took up the bill. During the debate, Rep. Richard H. Stanton of Kentucky moved to strike out “Columbia” and put in “Washington,” which Meany describes as an honor for the “Father of His Country.” Lane went along with it. The amendment passed, and so did the bill. President Millard Fillmore signed it on March 2, 1853.

Bancroft, writing 37 years later, didn’t like it. He called it “an ill-advised change,” though he doesn’t say what was wrong with it.

Meany points out a nice twist. Back in the 1790s, the British explorer George Vancouver had named part of this coast “New Georgia,” after King George III. Sixty years later, Congress put a different George on the map: the one who’d led the fight against him.

From territory to state

The first Washington Territory was a lot bigger than today’s state. It ran all the way to the Rocky Mountains until Congress carved out Idaho Territory in 1863. Washington became the 42nd state on November 11, 1889, Meany writes. It’s far from the only place with the name. The U.S. Geological Survey’s 1905 place-name book lists counties named for George Washington in more than 20 states, plus many cities and towns.

Sources & further reading

• Edmond S. Meany, Origin of Washington Geographic Names (1923). The “Washington” entry (pp. 336–338) covers the Olympia celebrations, the Cowlitz and Monticello conventions, Lane’s resolution of December 6, 1852, Stanton’s amendment of February 8, 1853, Fillmore’s signature on March 2, Vancouver’s “New Georgia,” and statehood on November 11, 1889. The “Columbia” entry (pp. 52–53) dates Gray’s naming of the river to May 1792 and notes that the bill first said “Territory of Columbia.”
• Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of Washington, Idaho, and Montana (1890), pp. 52–53, 60–61. Says the Monticello memorial asked for a territory “to be called the Territory of Columbia” (p. 53), describes the House debate and Stanton’s motion, and calls the change “ill-advised.”
• Henry Gannett, The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States (USGS, 1905), p. 316. “Named for Gen. George Washington,” along with the long list of counties that share the name.
• U.S. Census Bureau, state codes (2020). Lists Washington’s permanent federal place-name record number (GNIS 1779804).