On October 1, 1858, Shoalwater Bay (later Willapa Bay) Lighthouse exhibits its beacon for the first time. For the next 100 years, problems with visibility and coastal erosion on the bay, which lies ju...
On October 4, 1858, merchant O. P. Davis is sued for non-payment for goods he had bought from the San Francisco firm E. Fitzgerald and Co. to sell at his Whatcom store to prospectors on their way to t...
In 1859, Roman Catholic Priest Toussaint Mesplie begins St. Patrick's Church. The church is the first in the small village of Steptoeville -- soon to be named Walla Walla -- and operates out of a stru...
On March 1, 1859, as the sun sets over the small American military camp of Fort Townsend, a few miles south of Port Townsend at the northeast corner of the Olympic Peninsula, an unusual group young me...
In the spring of 1859, Lt. John Mullan (1830-1909), under the auspices of the U.S. War Department, begins directing a crew of 230 soldiers and civilians in the work of making a military road. Mullan R...
In 1859, cattleman Ben Snipes (1835-1906) constructs a small cabin in the Yakima Valley. The structure is the first cabin in the region to be built by a white person.
On June 15, 1859, Lyman Cutlar, an American settler on San Juan Island, shoots and kills a pig belonging to the British Hudson's Bay Company. The shooting ignites a long-simmering dispute between the ...
During the summer of 1859, Gustavus Sohon (1825-1903), a member of Captain John Mullan's team, explores the plains of Eastern Washington and the foothills of the Bitterroot Mountains in search of a vi...
On June 20, 1859, Captain (Brevet Major) Pinkney Lugenbeel (also spelled Lougenbeel) (1819-1886) arrives in the Colville Valley and selects a site near the present town of Colville, Spokane County (la...
On July 27, 1859, U.S. Army sutler Edward Warbass (1825-1906) accompanies Captain George Pickett (1825-1875) and 45 soldiers from Fort Bellingham when they disembark at the wharf at San Juan Town on S...
In 1859, cowboy Ben Snipes (1835-1906) drives his first herd of cattle north from the Columbia River through Washington Territory to the gold mining camps along the Fraser River in British Columbia. S...
On November 17, 1859, Walla Walla County commissioners name the town that has grown up around the U.S. military Fort Walla Walla. They elect to name the town Walla Walla. The town begins with a rich h...