The Great County Border War of 1886
When Pierce County attempted to poach King County's townships to bolster its own size and wealth, the local press didn't mince words about the 'unauthorized' territorial expansion.
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.
There is a movement afoot among our southern neighbors in Pierce County to annex certain townships from King County and annex them to Pierce. The townships upon which Pierce County has designs are ones which King County cannot afford to lose. They are valuable strips of country in every way. The population of these townships at the present time it would be difficult to estimate, but it is quite large and, what is more, historical. It is not known that there is any movement of these people in favor of annexation to Pierce County. These people all live in King and not in Pierce. They have long been to the habit of transacting their business in Seattle, and to make them go to Tacoma as their county seat would be a serious inconvenience. The communication with Seattle is excellent, the line being the Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern passing the western end of the river and the North-Western the eastern end. In short, no one can see a reason for the proposed change except the desire of the people of Pierce County to build up their own county at the expense of their less ardent neighbors to the north.
“The prosperity of the one county must not be at the expense of the other; King county must continue to be what it has long been—the empire county of Washington.”
This 1886 territorial dispute mirrors the modern anxiety surrounding municipal annexation and the competition between Seattle and Tacoma for economic dominance. The rhetoric of 'empire county' protectionism still echoes in how modern suburbs and regional power centers fight over tax bases and transit corridors.
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