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Twisp incorporates on August 2, 1909.

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On August 2, 1909, residents of Twisp vote 65 to 7 in favor of incorporating the town.  The small Okanogan County community is located in the Methow Valley at the confluence of the Twisp and Methow rivers in the eastern foothills of the North Cascade Mountains. 

"This decision on the part of the citizens of the Methow Valley metropolis will prove wise beyond a doubt if judicious management of municipal affairs is put in vogue," wrote the Okanogan Independent, which went on to extol the benefits -- a water system and street upgrades -- that the town of Okanogan had reaped after incorporating in 1907.  

At the time of its incorporation Twisp was the thriving commercial hub of the Methow Valley, serving miners searching for gold and silver in the nearby hills and the homesteaders who had been arriving since the area opened to white settlement in 1886.  The origins of Twisp date to July 30, 1897, when homesteader Henry C. Glover laid out and platted a town he called Glovers-Ville. That same year a small store was established, and shortly thereafter, a post office.  Amanda P. Burgar filed the plat for Twisp on June 29, 1899, adjacent to Glovers-Ville. Her plat was approved by the Okanogan County Commissioners on August 9 and filed for the record by the auditor on August 21, 1899. Glovers-Ville was considered part of Twisp from then on. 

A building boom in 1903 gave the town a photo studio, a saloon, a restaurant, a warehouse, an opera house, a blacksmith shop, a rooming house with a billiard room, a printing office, additions to several existing buildings, and numerous new houses and barns.  A weekly newspaper, the Methow Valley News, also started in 1903, and has continued to publish for more than 100 years.  By 1904 Twisp was considered one of the leading towns of Okanogan County.  Two years after the 1909 vote to incorporate the town had electricity and the valley’s first movie house. 

Contemporary Twisp has a different mix of businesses, but remains the commercial and arts hub of the Methow Valley. 

Sources:
Methow Valley News, Special Anniversary Souvenir Supplement, "60 Years of Progress, July 11, 1963, p. 11; Okanogan Independent, August 13, 1909, p. 2; Kit McLean and Karen West, Bound for the Methow (Winthrop: Shafer Historical Museum, 2009), 35; History of North Washington: An Illustrated History of Stevens, Ferry, Okanogan and Chelan Counties, State of Washington (Spokane: Western Historical Publishing Co., 1904), 550-560.  Order of Incorporation of the Town of Twisp as a Town of the 4th Class, August 4, 1909, AR3-3-15, Record of Cities and Towns Incorporated, Corporations and Trademarks, Secretary of State and Territory, State Government Archives, Washington State Archives, Olympia, Washington.

By Karen West, December 13, 2011

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