On November 11, 1889, Washington was granted statehood, which, while being a major victory for the residents of the new state in the Pacific Northwest, only served to continue the battle over the name “Washington.”
The Oregon Territory, which upon acquisition encompassed all of modern-day Washington, Idaho, and Oregon, officially became U.S. property in 1848. It was home to several settlements, mostly based around the fur trade and the logging industry, and scattered along the coast from the northern edge of California all the way north to the 49th parallel and what would become British Columbia. There were two distinct groups in the region and, desiring more control, the settlers in the puget sound area near modern-day Seattle met in 1852 and petitioned the federal government for their own territory. Its borders would be the Pacific Ocean and the 49th parallel to the west and north respectively, and the Columbia river to the south. For this reason, they proposed naming it the “Territory of Columbia.”
Congress met to consider their proposal in January of 1853 and seemingly the only major concern was with the name. They worried that were it granted the name of Columbia, the territory would be confused with the District of Columbia, the federally controlled area in which they were meeting. While today we most commonly refer to this federal zone as Washington or Washington D.C., back then it was most often referred to as the District of Columbia. At the time, the District actually contained two cities: Washington and Georgetown. And so calling it Washington would have been like calling New Jersey Newark. One of the representatives suggested that instead of Columbia, these settlers should avoid confusion and honor the first President at the same time by naming their new territory Washington. All was agreed, and Washington became the country’s newest territory in March of 1853.
Around 18 years after Washington became a territory, naming confusion returned to the halls of Congress, this time with a focus on the federal district. Each of the District’s two cities had their own city governments, with the entire district being directly managed by Congress. This oddly-hewn bureaucracy resulted in gross mismanagement of much of the district, and in 1871 Congress passed the Organic Act, essentially combining the whole area into a single city known as Washington. As the population continued to grow, the city took up the entire district, leading to our modern name of Washington, D.C., which doesn’t really distinguish between the district and the city that fills it.
There wasn’t much of an issue with the two Washingtons, until of course when the territory petitioned for statehood 1889. The specter of having two areas in the country, not even two states, share a name was really only superficial. There was an activist response, but it mostly used the dual name issue as a launching point for their own attacks against Westernized names for what was once indigenous lands. Washington (territory) residents readily rebuffed any name changes, and the area was granted statehood as Washington in 1889. Today, the simple solution is to refer to the northwest state as Washington State, and the district as Washington, D.C., hardly too much of a hassle to doubly honor the nation’s premier founding father.