The Governor Who Filled Washington Returns, and Finds It Full
Sixteen years after leaving office, former territorial governor Edward Salomon walks back into an Olympia hotel and finds old friends grown wealthy — and a young state he helped populate now competing with Seattle and Tacoma for its own future.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Ex-Governor Edward S. Salomon, who presided over the territory of Washington as governor from 1870 to 1872, is visiting old friends in Olympia on his return to San Francisco, his present home. Governor Salomon is on the Sound on a trip of both business and pleasure, but his stay is necessarily short. He expects, however, to return for a more extended visit.
"It looks like home to get back in Olympia once more," he said this morning, "and particularly with the rain." It seemed even more so to come up to this hotel, after an absence of 16 years, for right next door, in George Foster's house, is where I lived for two years and it looks so natural. I am on my way home now, and stopped in Olympia more particularly to see my old friends, and I am gratified to learn that many of them are doing so well. The majority of them are well fixed, while others are actually wealthy. And they ought to be, too, for I believe today that the territory — I mean the state of Washington, for I'm so used to calling it territory — has more probabilities for becoming a great and populous state than any on the Pacific coast. I have visited several places on the Sound, but the changes in Tacoma and Seattle are marvelous. Particularly is it so in Tacoma, because there was not a house there, and Seattle had a start. Seattle, though, appears to have more bustle and life about it, but Tacoma is very substantial. I couldn't help noticing that any remarks I made in Seattle about Tacoma were carefully omitted in the Seattle papers, and the same in the Tacoma papers about Seattle.
"Olympia ought to go right ahead now since it has become the permanent capital. It is a beautiful place, and I am told that 100,000 acres have been granted for a state capitol. It is deserving of a building worthy of such a great and growing state. I haven't had an opportunity to get around much yet, but I shall call on Governor Ferry and other friends and look around the city."
A Seattle paper says of the visitor: "Gov. Salomon appears a much younger man than those acquainted with his distinguished career might imagine him to be. Born in Schlesing, Germany, in 1837, he came to this country in 1854, after the completion of his studies. When the war broke out he enlisted as a private in the Twenty-fourth Illinois infantry. His ability as a soldier won recognition from the start, and he received successive promotion to the offices of second lieutenant, lieutenant, captain and major. Then he helped organize the Eighty-second Illinois infantry, of which he was first lieutenant-colonel and afterward colonel. During the course of the war he served in the Army of the West, the Army of the Potomac and the Army of the Cumberland, and he fought in many of the greatest battles — Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, New Hope church and Mission. In the operations around Atlanta he took a prominent part, and in the great march of Sherman his name was frequently mentioned with distinction in the dispatches and reports, and by the close of the war he had won by sheer merit the title of brigadier general.
"Returning to Chicago, he again took up the practice of law. In 1870 President Grant appointed him governor of Washington territory, which then contained a population of 23,009 whites. Governor Salomon bent all his energies in building up the territory, and he it was who started the immigration movement which makes the time memorable. At his own expense he established and maintained in Chicago an emigration bureau, and he devoted considerable time to lecturing throughout the East on the advantages and resources of the Northwest. Special railroad rates were procured to San Francisco, and he chartered the steamer Idaho to bring from there the immigrants and their belongings. In this way Governor Salomon brought hundreds of families to Washington — families which have since acquired wealth and prominence. Among the men who came at that time are Major James R. Hayden, Mr. Otto Ranke and General Ross G. O'Brien. The stream of immigration then begun has steadily increased until the present time.
"After holding the office of governor for two years, General Salomon went to San Francisco and resumed the practice of law."
“Olympia ought to go right ahead now since it has become the permanent capital. It is a beautiful place... It is deserving of a building worthy of such a great and growing state.”
Salomon was an early booster who literally recruited settlers — chartering a steamer and running an emigration bureau out of his own pocket — and here he sizes up Olympia's rivals on the Sound. The talk of 'permanent capital' and a capitol 'worthy of such a great and growing state' is the same civic self-promotion Olympia still runs on as it jockeys with Seattle and Tacoma for attention and investment.
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