How King County Came to Be

The Lushootseed-speaking Indigenous peoples of the Duwamish Tribe were the original inhabitants of what is now called King County. When the Denny Party of settlers first landed their schooner, Exact, at Alki Point in 1851, they arrived at a village of over a thousand Indigenous peoples and dozens of Hudson’s Bay Company employees.

Fortunately for these early pioneers, the Duwamish people were kind and helped them survive their first winter in a new territory. The Duwamish illustrated how to subsist in this new region, and helped the Party create dwellings.

By the next year, on December 22, 1852, King County was created as part of the Oregon Territory. Washington Territory was formed a mere three months later, and King County then became an official part of that newly-designated area.

The new county was named for William Rufus Devane King, the just-elected Vice President of the United States, who died in office shortly thereafter, and never served.

The county name stuck though, much to the chagrin of its residents whose values didn’t align with King’s. He was a slave-holder who, according to the King County City Council, “earned income and maintained his lifestyle by oppressing and exploiting other human beings.”

The new Washington Territory did not uphold the Oregon Territory’s ban on Black settlers, and for the next more than 100 years, King County residents wondered why their county’s namesake should be in honor of such a blighted and troubled individual?

All of that changed in 1986 when King County redesigned its eponym and logo. Robust community support and determined King County Council Member, Ron Sims shifted the meaning of the name to honor Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. whose, according to the Council, “contributions are well-documented and celebrated by millions throughout the nation and the world, and embody attributes for which the citizens of King County can be proud and claim as their own.”