The city of Roslyn is incorporated on February 4, 1889.

  • By Jim Kershner
  • Posted 12/16/2009
  • HistoryLink.org Essay 9242
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On February 4, 1889, the citizens of Roslyn, which began as a coal camp three years earlier, present a petition to Judge L. B. Nash requesting that their city be incorporated. He duly proclaims Roslyn to be an incorporated town, and the city government is organized. Yet the decree will later be nullified. The city is re-incorporated on April 26, 1890, after Washington achieves statehood.

Upon granting the first decree, the court appointed as town trustees William Mohr, James Graham, Charles Miller, and chairman Isaac Brown. However, Roslyn's first incorporation became caught up in a dispute over Washington Territory's incorporation law. The courts soon determined that the law was unconstitutional because it allowed government entities other than the legislature to grant incorporation. So Roslyn's incorporation was declared null.

That same year, Washington became a state. The legislature adopted a new general incorporation law on March 27, 1890. On April 2, 1890, the town petitioned to re-incorporate as a third class city under the new state laws. An election was set for April 17, 1890. Incorporation passed by a vote of 237 in favor, one opposed. The re-incorporation was officially registered with the Washington Secretary of State on April 26, 1890.
 


Sources: An Illustrated History of Klickitat, Yakima and Kittitas Counties, ed. by William Sidney Shiach (Spokane: Interstate Publishing Co., 1904); John C. Shideler, Coal Towns in the Cascades: A Centennial History of Roslyn and Cle Elum, Washington (Spokane: Melior Publications, 1986); W. D. Lyman, History of the Yakima Valley, Washington: Comprising Yakima, Benton and Kittitas Counties (Spokane: S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1919); Spawn of Coal Dust: History of Roslyn, 1886-1955 (Roslyn: A Project of Operation Uplift, Community Development Program, 1955);  "Copy of Proceedings to Be Had In the Matter of Election to Re-Organize the Town of Roslyn," April 26, 1890, Washington Secretary of State records.

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