King county i Washington state

Arkiv:
Länk: King county

The county was formed out of territory within Thurston County on December 22, 1852, by the Oregon Territory legislature, and was named after Alabama resident William R. King, who had just been elected Vice President of the United States under President Franklin Pierce. Seattle was made the county seat on January 11, 1853. The area became part of the Washington Territory when it was created later that year.

King County originally extended to the Olympic Peninsula. According to historian Bill Speidel, when peninsular prohibitionists threatened to shut down Seattle’s saloons, Doc Maynard engineered a peninsular independence movement; King County lost what is now Kitsap County, but preserved its entertainment industry.

On February 24, 1986, a motion to change the namesake to Martin Luther King Jr. was passed by the King County Council five votes to four. The motion stated, among other reasons for the change, that ”William Rufus DeVane King, was a slaveowner and a ‘gentle slave monger’ according to John Quincy Adams.” Because only the state can charter counties, the change was not made official until April 19, 2005, when Governor Christine Gregoire signed into law Senate Bill 5332, which provided that ”King county is renamed in honor of the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr.” effective July 24, 2005.