The
seat of Whitman County, Wash. is Colfax, Wash. Pullman is the largest city in
the county. The "official newspaper" of Colfax is the Whitman County
Gazette. An earlier iteration of the newspaper was "The
Commoner." WSU was signed into
state law on March 28, 1890. This information to give context to the following
from the June 30, 2015, Gazette's "Good Old Days" feature about
"125 years ago. The Commoner. July 25, 1890:"
T.J.
Smith, of the agricultural college commission, was in the city this week, having
returned from the session of the commission held at Yakima Monday last. He was
interviewed by a Commoner reporter and kindly volunteered to make some
interesting statements on the subject of the college. “At Spokane,” Mr. Smith
said, “we spent some days and were shown some good sites, the best being on
Five Mile prairie, north of the city. Sprague was next visited, and a beautiful
site offered there. Then the commission went to Yakima, and settled down to try
and decide the question. We went over all our work with this in view.”
“How
many sites had been offered all told?” was asked.
“We
had been offered seven, by Walla Walla, Dayton, Colfax, Pullman, Spokane,
Sprague and Yakima, respectively, and every one was a good one.”
“I
believe the Colfax site is as good if not better than any of them. Besides, I
consider Whitman county has the first claim on the location of this school.”
“It
will not be by your vote, then that the school goes to any other point?”
“Assuredly
not. And that is what I would like you to say. While I think other places have
offered good sites for the school, I believe it should come here to this
county. Pullman made a good offer; but my choice is Colfax. I could not give my
consent to any other county. Colfax is my first choice, and I have no second.”
