Geography and Industry

Washington is a large western state that has the Columbia River running north to south through most of it. Then the river turns westward and runs along Washington's southern border with Oregon, all the way to the sea. Puget (“PYOO-jit”) Sound, the largest saltwater inlet on the west coast, runs through western Washington and separates the large Olympic Peninsula from the rest of the state.

The jagged, picturesque Olympic Mountains rise on that peninsula, and within Olympic National Park lies almost all of the only rainforest in the continental United States. The east side of Puget Sound is bordered by the very tall Cascade Mountains. They reach their greatest height at the summit of Mount Rainier, which lies just southeast of the state's largest city of Seattle, and rises up to a little over 14,000 feet.

The Cascades block warm wet ocean air from reaching the state's interior (and are the cause for a lot of the rain that falls around Puget Sound). As a result, the Columbia River Basin, which stretches from the eastern Cascades to the foothills of the Rockies in the eastern part of the state, is pretty dry. Large rivers such as the Spokane, the Wenatchee, the Yakima, and the Snake all flow into the Columbia in this region.

Because the soil of the area is made up of large deposits of nutrient-rich volcanic dirt, water from these rivers used for irrigation of the dry land has turned Washington's desert area into a garden. Such crops as apples, pears, cherries, wheat, barley, hops, and grapes grow in such abundance here that they are a major export for the state.

In addition to all of the fruits and vegetables grown for sale in this state, there is a large livestock industry (including beef cattle and sheep, and especially poultry). On top of that, Washington's position on the northwest coast, near some of the north Pacific's richest fishing grounds, ensures that it produces a lot of seafood, including salmon, cod, halibut, and shellfish (such as clams, scallops and oysters). One particularly famous local clam is the geoduck.

Washington is famous for producing more than apples and clams, though. Nearly half of the state is covered in evergreen forests, and although it's not as essential as it once was, logging is still a big industry in Washington. Manufacturing is important to the state as well. The Boeing Company has been producing airplanes and airplane parts in the state for nearly a hundred years. Over the last two decades, Microsoft Corporation, based in Redmond, Washington, has become one of the most influential and innovative software manufacturers in the world.

Another popular industry in the state of Washington is the tourism industry. With national parks such as Olympic National Park, North Cascades National Park, and Mount Rainier National Park, and the active volcano Mount St. Helens in southwestern Washington, there are plenty of places to hike, boat, fish, hunt, and camp in the Evergreen State.

WORDS TO KNOW

Geoduck

The word “geoduck” (“GOO-ee-duk”) comes from a local Native American phrase that means “dig deep.” A geo-duck is not a bird; it's a huge species of clam that can be found only in and around Washington's Puget Sound. These clams have shells that only measure about six inches around, but they can weigh as much as twenty pounds!

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Apples!

More apples are grown in Washington State than in any other area in the world. In fact, the next time you go to the store, take a look at the apples that are displayed for sale. Wherever you live, there is a more than 90 percent chance that these apples will have a sticker that says “Grown in Washington”!

History

Before European exploration and settlement of the area, Washington was occupied by tribes who either spent most of their time on horseback or out in canoes fishing and hunting whales. The interior tribes such as the Yakama, Spokane, Palouse, Wal-la Walla, Colville, and Cayuse lived much as the Plains tribes did: moving from place to place and hunting buffalo nearly year-round. The coastal tribes, including the Duwamish, the Hoh, and the Makah, lived in long houses made from cedar planks, and hunted whales out on the open ocean in massive dugout canoes carved from the trunks of huge cedar trees.

During the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, Spanish sailors explored along Washington's coast, leaving their mark with place names such as the Strait of Juan de Fuca. In the late eighteenth century, Captain George Vancouver explored along Washington's coast looking for the mouth of the Columbia River (American sea captain Robert Gray had beaten him to it by just a few weeks).

American explorers Lewis and Clark visited the southern part of the state when they followed the Snake River out of Idaho and all the way to where it empties into the Columbia in 1805. After Lewis and Clark, the region was jointly occupied by citizens of the United States and Canadians (who were British subjects) for nearly forty years until the Oregon Treaty in 1846 split the region into the Canadian province of British Columbia and the American-run Oregon Territory.

When Oregon became a state in 1859, the rest of the territory became known as the Washington Territory. It included parts of what later became Idaho and Montana as well. In 1889, Washington became a state.

The Only One

What makes the state of Washington's name unique? To find out, fill in all the letters G and W, and the numbers 1 through 5. Read the remaining white letters from left to right, and top to bottom!