Admit It!
On this day in 1889, the state of Washington was admitted to the union, making it the forty-second state.
A confederation of Yakima, Spokane, and Nez Perce tribes fought pioneer settlement until 1858, when federal troops defeated them. Thirty years later, the Evergreen State was the first, and today remains the only one, to have named itself for a U.S. president. The state's geography is dominated by the Cascade Mountain Range, home of Mount St. Helens, shown in today's photograph. West of the mountains, the land is wet and green, while east of the range, the land is arid and desert-like.
Lookout, Washington! On November 23, our traveling exhibition Young America: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum opens at the Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture in Spokane.
Pictured: Emmet Gowin, born 1941, Mount St. Helens, Washington, 1980, gelatin silver print, 9 13/16 x 9 3/4 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the National Endowment for the Arts.
On this day in 1889, the state of Washington was admitted to the union, making it the forty-second state.
A confederation of Yakima, Spokane, and Nez Perce tribes fought pioneer settlement until 1858, when federal troops defeated them. Thirty years later, the Evergreen State was the first, and today remains the only one, to have named itself for a U.S. president. The state's geography is dominated by the Cascade Mountain Range, home of Mount St. Helens, shown in today's photograph. West of the mountains, the land is wet and green, while east of the range, the land is arid and desert-like.