Judge Langley Returns From the World's Fair
A local superior court judge brings back news of the Washington State building at the Chicago World's Fair and reports on a growing interest in western migration.
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Judge J. W. Langley, of the superior court of King county, has returned from a visit to the World's fair and to his old home in Illinois. 'I was proud and gratified,' he says, 'with the Washington state building. It is so thoroughly characteristic of the state, and so well displays our resources. I met many people at my old home who had visited the fair and all had especially noticed our building. California is well represented, too, but no man from this state need feel at all ashamed of our exhibit. I had a splendid time, and was specially gratified at my old regiment, the One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Illinois, deferring its annual reunion in order that I might attend. My old home is at Champaign, but we met at Danville, in Vermillion county. I met a Mr. Daniels, a wealthy man whose interests are in the working of coal. He was in Seattle early in the year, and was among the most enthusiastic admirers of the Puget Sound country. I found that many people who had visited the fair had concluded to visit this part of the country next year. The wheat crop and corn crop are both very poor this year in that state, the season having been very dry. Although the state is well cultivated, there are many who intend to seek new homes in the far West, and Washington seems to be their first choice.'
“Although the state is well cultivated, there are many who intend to seek new homes in the far West, and Washington seems to be their first choice.”
The 1893 World's Fair served as a massive branding exercise for Washington, signaling the state's transition from frontier territory to a serious destination for investment and settlement. Today, Seattle remains a major migration hub, though the 'wheat and corn' drought drivers of the 1890s have been replaced by contemporary economic shifts.
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