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Washington Counties
 Click Image to Enlarge Washington CountiesThere are 39 counties in the state of Washington. Washington was carved out of the western part of Washington Territory and admitted to the Union as the 42nd state in 1889. The first counties were created from unorganized territory in 1845. |
Thurston County, WashingtonThurston County History, Geography, Demographics, Cities and Towns, and Education
Etymology - Origin of County NameSamuel Royal Thurston, Oregon Territory's first delegate to the United States Congress. Demographics:County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts County HistoryThurston County was created out of Lewis County by the government of Oregon Territory on January 12, 1852. At that time, it covered all of the Puget Sound region and the Olympic Peninsula. On December 22 of the same year, Pierce, King, Island, and Jefferson Counties were split off from Thurston County Thurston County is located in Western Washington, on the southern end of Puget Sound, often called the "South
Sound." It is the eighth smallest county in the state, with a total land mass of 727 miles, but also the eighth most
populous county, with a population of 207,355 counted in the 2000 United States Census. Thurston County is named
after Samuel R. Thurston, in 1849 the first delegate to Congress from the new Oregon Territory, part of which later
became Washington. In 1845 the county became the site of the first American settlement in the future state of
Washington when Michael Simmons (1814-1867) settled near Tumwater Falls. In 1853 the town of Olympia was chosen as
the territorial (later state) capital, but battles would rage over this choice for the next century. During the
county's first century lumber and its byproducts rather than state government played the leading economic role. In
1954, the Washington Supreme Court ruled that state government offices must have their headquarters in Olympia, and
soon state government dominated the county's economy, while its lumber industry faded to a fraction of its former
glory. Thurston County's population boomed beginning in the early 1970s, transforming the towns of Olympia, Lacey,
and Tumwater into a small metropolis of its own and attracting migration from the larger cities to the north of
Tacoma and Seattle. GeographyAccording to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 774 square miles (2,004 kmē), of which, 727
square miles (1,883 kmē) of it is land and 47 square miles (121 kmē) of it (6.03%) is water. Neighboring Counties:
Cities and Towns:
County Resources:Enter County Resources and Information Here |
County Resources
The history of our nation was a prolonged struggle to define
the relative roles and powers of our governments: federal, state, and local.
And the names given the counties, our most locally based jurisdictions,
reflects the "characteristic features of this country!"
But age, size and colorful names of our counties isn't the only reason to explore counties' role in American history, or the history of county government itself. In fact, the story of county government reflects the larger meanings of American history. Today's counties are the most flexible, locally responsive and creative governments in the US. They are the most diverse, varying in size, population, geography, and governmental structure. In their politics and policies, they express a 1990's political slogan "Think globally, act locally." |
