Long before the Denny Party arrived on the schooner Exact and landed at Alki Point, Indigenous peoples lived off of and worked with the land that is now called King County. These Lushootseed-speaking people, the Duwamish Tribe, had 17 villages on or near Seattle where they lived in Longhouses, were sustained by salmon, shellfish, and berries, and traveled by cedar canoe.

Like most origin stories, the white settlers who arrived in the area likely would have perished if it were not for the help of the Indigenous peoples. The very people who had stewarded and revered this land since time immemorial.

By 1846, Great Britain ceded Pacific Northwest land to the United States, an area that would later become the Oregon Territory. And then the northern portion of it became the Washington Territory. And then not long after that: statehood.

A lovely essay on King County’s history explains that the Oregon Territorial Legislature created King County on December 22, 1852, and less than three months later when the Washington Territory was formed, King County became a part of that newly-designated area.

The city of Seattle grew. Born from a rough and tumble logging town with a deep water port and abundant timber to export, it remains as the epicenter of King County and all of Washington State.

Settlers flocked to the King County area for many reasons, most of which were pursuing opportunity and the ability to change their lives. If you surveyed buyers today on why they are looking to buy land in King County, Washington, they’ll likely tell you the very same story.

Washington State is the only one of the 50 to be named after a United States President. History tells us that King County was originally named for William Rufus DeVane King, a senator from Alabama elected U.S. Vice President the year he died, in 1853.

The problem with William King though, was that he was a slave-holder and according to Ron Sims, King County Council member and driving force behind the 1986 namesake change, “Just doesn’t pass muster as one of America’s great leaders.”

So it was in 1986, and also in 1987, that King County would keep its name but replace the eponym and logo with civil rights leader and activist Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., upholding the standards of leadership, thoughtfulness, and progressivism that the county is known for.