Copyright © 1989, Charles K. Wiggins
Introduction
Austin Mires served as one of the delegates to the constitutional convention from the City of Ellensburgh. [1] Mires labored on behalf of his home city to move the state capital from Olympia to Ellensburgh. Mires' efforts culminated in a vote by the people on the capital location, but the people chose Olympia. Mires also served as chairman of the committee on water rights, and helped craft the compromise on the thorniest issue of the convention, disposition of the tidelands.
Mires maintained a daily diary for over 60 year, through which one glimpses the daily life of a small town lawyer for the first half century of Washington's statehood. Mires' diary reveals a man of strong opinions bluntly stated and vigorously advocated: a staunch Republican, holding numerous offices throughout his long career; an observer of history and human nature, writing in his diary of George Washington, "God gave him to the world at the appointed time and we owe to his endeavors and his patriotism more than we can tell"; an American patriot, recording in his diary his disappointment that the Army had rejected his application for enlistment (at age 66); a devoted family man, recording tender and affectionate moments; a nineteenth century man recording his reaction to the installation of electricity in his home, a telephone in his home, his first ride in an automobile, his first moving picture, and his incredulity at listening to a radio "in an automobile!"
A New Town And A New Law Practice
Austin Mires was born in Iowa in 1852 and traveled the Oregon Trail with his family in 1853, settling in Douglas County, Oregon. Mires obtained his law degree in 1882 from Michigan State University, where he served as private secretary to Thomas M. Cooley, then Dean of the law school, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Michigan, and author of a widely respected treatise on state constitutional law.
In 1883 Mires moved to the small village of Ellensburgh, which had a population of about 150 people. Ellensburgh was founded by John Shoudy and named after his wife Mary Ellen. Shoudy later served as a fellow delegate to the constitutional convention with Mires. Ellensburgh became a county seat when Kittitas County was split from Yakima County at the end of 1883. Mires was instrumental in the incorporation of the city in 1886, and served two terms as Ellensburgh's first mayor.
In 1885 Mires married Mary Rowland, who had been born in Oregon and had lived in the Kittitas Valley since 1874. Mary's travels illustrate the changes brought to Ellensburgh by the railroad. In 1877 Mary traveled by horse over the Cascades, a trip which required seven days and 36 river crossings. She returned via train to the Columbia River, steamer to the Dalles, and freight wagon to Ellensburgh, which took another twelve and a half days. In 1880 Mary traveled on improved trails, and crossed the Cascades on horseback in only three and a half days. The completion of the Northern Pacific over the Cascades to Tacoma reduced the travel time to a matter of hours.
The arrival of the Northern Pacific Railroad fueled Ellensburgh's rapid growth. The Northern Pacific built a permanent roundhouse and repair shops for its Cascade division at Ellensburgh, bringing employees and payroll into the new city. Mires acted as local attorney for the railroad and assisted in securing the right-of-way through the Kittitas Valley. The railroad also opened up Ellensburgh farms and ranches to markets on Puget Sound and abroad. The area to the north of Ellensburgh, the Okanogan and Big Bend country, became a lucrative gold and silver mining district, and Ellensburgh became the supply center for miners. Coal mines were developed at nearby Roslyn, and iron ore was discovered nearby. In 1888 the population doubled, and by the time of the constitutional convention 4,000 people made their homes in Ellensburgh, making it a larger city than Olympia.
The growing city of Ellensburgh attracted the attention of the rest of the territory through several political events. Ellensburgh hosted the 1888 territorial convention of the Republican party. The people of Ellensburgh also organized a territorial admission convention for the purpose of memorializing Congress to admit Washington to statehood. The convention met January 3-4, 1889 and Mires served as a delegate. In February 1889, Congress approved the omnibus bill authorizing the admission to statehood of the Dakotas, Montana and Washington Territories.
Delegate To The Convention
Mires was elected on the Republican ticket as a delegate from Kittitas County to the constitutional convention. Mires was mentioned as a prospect for president, or chairman of the convention, but lacked popular support and so gave his own support to Judge George Turner of Spokane Falls. Mires was selected as chairman of the committee on water rights, and also served on the judiciary committee under Judge Turner's chairmanship. Mires' diary reflects a growing admiration of Turner's talent, which continued until Turner's death in 1932, when Mires borrowed Marc Antony's description of Julius Caesar to eulogize Turner as "one of the noblest men that ever lived in the tide of times."
Mires' participation in the convention was abruptly interrupted by the Ellensburgh fire, which destroyed 200 homes and the entire business district of the city on the night of July 4. Mires' office and library were destroyed by the fire. Mires immediately returned to Ellensburgh, and recorded his impression on arrival on Sunday, July 7:
Found the fine city of Ellensburgh looking very desolate on account of its almost absolute destruction by fire on the Fourth instant. Found my darling wife and babes well, except my wife had her shoulder dislocated on the night of the fire but it is better now.
Mires spent two days straightening up his affairs, then returned to the convention with Mary and "the babes," daughter Anna age 3 and son John age 2.
The Battle For The Capital
The Ellensburgh fire failed to undermine the aspirations of the people of Ellensburgh to see the state capital located in their home town. Even as the fire burned, the territorial governor wired the mayor of Ellensburgh to ascertain the needs of the city. The mayor promptly responded, "We want the capital!" Ellensburgh immediately began to rebuild, and by the end of the year had more brick buildings than before the fire.
Olympia, the territorial capital, was the favored contender in the battle for the state capital, opposed chiefly by Ellensburgh and North Yakima. Olympia had been selected for the first territorial legislative assembly by Governor Isaac Stevens in 1853. Vancouver, located in the more populous Clark County, fought for the capital in succeeding legislative sessions. In the legislative session of 1860-1861, Vancouver won the support of Arthur A. Denny of Seattle in exchange for locating the territorial university at Seattle. The legislature hurriedly passed a bill relocating the capital at Vancouver, and another locating the university in Seattle. The following summer the people of the territory voted overwhelmingly to retain the capital at Olympia.
No one knew whether the legislature should assemble at Olympia or Vancouver, and the full legislature was unable to achieve a quorum at either city. The deadlock was broken at last by the Territorial Supreme Court sitting at Olympia. (Although this too was in doubt, since the court was required to sit at "the seat of government".) The court concluded that the legislature had exceeded its powers in permanently relocating the seat of government to Vancouver, and that the act was void because it had no enacting clause.
Olympia successfully defeated efforts to relocate the capital throughout the next three decades. The city of North Yakima mounted a serious challenge to Olympia in the legislature of 1887-1888. North Yakima had been created by the Northern Pacific Railway in 1884, bypassing the previously established Yakima City. The railroad claimed that the old town site was unacceptable for several reasons, but the pioneers of Yakima City charged the railroad with speculation, greed and thirst for power. The people of Yakima City persuaded Judge George Turner to order the railroad to reestablish passenger and freight service to the old town site. Eventually, however, most of the inhabitants of the old town site moved to North Yakima, and in 1917 North Yakima became Yakima and Yakima City was renamed Union Gap.
The people of North Yakima argued that their city was more centrally located, and was readily accessible by railroad. Yakima's blandishments included an escrowed deed to 50 acres of land for a capital campus on a hill overlooking the city, $10,000 in cash for a capital building, and another $2,000 for the expense of moving. Legislation to relocate the capital was introduced in the session of 1887-1888. The citizens of Ellensburgh also wanted the capital, and sent a delegation to Olympia to lobby against North Yakima. Mires was included in the delegation, and his diary recorded that he attended numerous committee meetings and hearings, that this was his first trip to Puget Sound, and that he was "extremely homesick to see my dear wife and babes." The territorial house rejected North Yakima's proposal by a vote of 11 to 12.
With the passage of the omnibus bill admitting Washington into the union, the battle for the capital shifted to the constitutional convention. Olympia defended her claim, while North Yakima and Ellensburgh mounted the most serious challenges, with Pasco, Centralia, Waterville and Waitsburg also making bids. Dr. Arthur Beardsley has suggested that, "Had North Yakima and Ellensburgh united their efforts to relocate the capital at one town or the other, or perhaps in the hills between them, they might have succeeded in securing its location in central Washington." (See Note on Sources infra.) But neither city was inclined to compromise and the battle was joined.
Ellensburgh real estate promoters platted an addition to the city called Washington State Capital Park. Not to be outdone by the gift of land from North Yakima, the promoters set aside a capital campus as a "free gift to the citizens of the City of Ellensburgh and State of Washington. . ." The promoters gave platted lots in Washington State Capital Park to newspapers which published editorials favoring Ellensburgh as a capital site.
The City of Ellensburgh rented two rooms in Olympia to serve as its headquarters during the convention. North Yakima had its own lobbying headquarters, at which the delegates freely sampled the finest products of the vineyards of the Yakima Valley. Strangely, Mires never mentions the Ellensburgh hospitality suite in his diary. Mires may have used the hospitality suite for his regular poker games with other convention delegates. These were apparently substantial games, occasionally lasting all night, in which Mires' winnings and losses ranged from a low of one dollar on one night to a high of $331 on another night. His overall winnings during the convention totaled $1,494, and his losses $898, for a net gain of $596. One of Mires' most colorful entries records a poker game on July 25: "The lamp was knocked over by Manley and we had a time to put out the fire with bucket. Scattered our money and checks everywhere."
The citizens of Olympia appear to have exerted the most effective influence on the convention delegates. Olympia's critics charged that the old territorial capital building, located one mile uphill from the business portion of the town, was totally inadequate for the business of the territory. The Olympia Board of Trade added to and refurbished the territorial capital building at a cost of $4,000, in hopes that Olympia would retain the capital and that the legislature would reimburse the Board of Trade. A Tacoma newspaper reporter observed:
I visited the capital today and found that old building had undergone wonderful changes. A new addition, 30x35, has been added, giving increased seating capacity. The entire building has been painted inside and out. The hall where the delegates will meet has been covered with new carpet of a handsome pattern. New chairs and desks have been provided and the walls lined with wainscoting, which shines like glass. Gas fixtures for 35 lights and stationary wash stands are put in. Hitherto the lengthy intellects which have framed our laws discoursed by 9 lamp lights and performed their ablutions at the well.
The same reporter quoted the remarks of Territorial Treasurer Frank I. Blogett, that Ellensburgh would fight vigorously to get the capital:
Representative men of that thieving city will be here during the session in the interest of a clause in the constitution making Ellensburgh the capital city.
The Globe hastily published a correction several days later, explaining that the reporter had written "thriving city" and that a typographical error had slipped through the proofreading process.
The Olympia Board of Trade engineered a second public relations coup when it hosted an enormous clam bake for the delegates on July 23, the day on which a proposition was introduced to locate the seat of government at Olympia. The convention adjourned at 10:30 in the morning to attend the clam bake. Mires wrote: "Butler's Cove is a beautiful place. We had all the clams we could eat, returned home in evening." The City of Olympia virtually closed down, and 2,000 people were ferried up Budd's Inlet to Butler's Cove to feast on clams. By all reports, the occasion was a great success. The Olympia Washington Standard bristled at the suggestion of another newspaper that the clam bake had been a "clever and shrewd move" designed to influence the delegates in Olympia's favor:
It is nothing new for Olympia to entertain her guests in royal style. She has always treated visiting delegations from abroad in a manner that enlisted the most hearty encomiums. There has never been a session of the legislature which was not made to feel at home by some such attention as was bestowed Tuesday on the constitution makers. These courtesies generally take the form of indoor receptions, as the season when the legislative solons assembled would not permit of picnics or clam bakes.
Had there been no thought of a capital location, it is safe to say that the clam bake would have taken place just the same.
Olympia had gained an extra edge when one of its own delegates, T. M. Reed, was appointed chairman of the committee drafting the article on the capital. Olympia was also favored by the fact that five of the seven committee members were from Western Washington, and thus presumably more inclined to retain the capital at Olympia. The committee proposed to retain the capital permanently at Olympia. When the Tacoma Ledger disclosed the plan, the ensuing storm of protest forced the committee to reconsider. The committee eventually recommended to the full convention that the capital location question be submitted immediately for a vote by the full electorate. The delegates adopted the committee proposal that the issue should be submitted at the election to ratify the constitution, with a runoff the next year if one city failed to receive a clear majority. Several years would be required to build a new capital, thus assuring that Olympia would retain the capital for at least five years.
Committee chairman Reed of Olympia had declared that although he had been criticized for the committee's report, he preferred to see the capital removed from Olympia rather than retain it through some unfairness. Reed incurred the wrath of the Olympia Washington Standard for his appeal to fairness and his failure to insist that the constitution should name Olympia as the capital: "Olympia will not get the capital, as T. M. Reed, being anxious for office, has urged it being placed on wheels." The Standard grumbled, "It is the first instance on record where any practically unanimous report in favor of a constituency has been changed to an adverse one by the persistent demand of their leading representative."
The Ellensburgh newspapers had favored submission of the capital question to the popular vote, and were pleased with the action of the convention. Mires mentioned the action of the convention in his diary, and observed, "Today Godman went back on our agreement with me." What did Mires mean? Melvin M. Godman was a lawyer from Dayton in Columbia County, east of Walla Walla. Godman proposed a section which authorized the legislature to appropriate funds for "repairs and enlargement of the capital or state buildings at Olympia as shall be deemed necessary and property . . . until the seat of government is permanently fixed. . ." No such provision had appeared in the Mires draft. Perhaps Mires feared that the legislature would seize the opportunity to improve the state facilities at Olympia to the extent that the voters would be reluctant to relocate the capital.
The battleground now shifted to the newspapers, as the competing cities presented their claims to the public at large. Negative publicity campaigns are apparently an enduring feature of the American political scene. Rival newspapers not only touted the virtues of their own cities, they denigrated claims of other cities. The Olympia Washington Standard pointed to Olympia's convenient location ("so grandly situated at the headwater of the grand Mediterranean of America"), pleasant climate, and history ("a city honored by being the residence of General Isaac I. Stephens, who in gallantly defending the American Union, laid his noble life on the alter of his country and whose faith in and devotion to this great commonwealth and this city as its capital was most emphatic and enthusiastic").
Both North Yakima and Ellensburgh pointed to their central location as the dispositive issue. All that remained for each of these two "centrally located" cities was to criticize the unsuitability of its rival. The North Yakima Washington Farmer argued that Ellensburgh was "cold and frosty . . . without hotel or running water. . ." and that "there are five times as many saloons as North Yakima." The Ellensburgh Capital indignantly struck back at North Yakima as "the property of the Northern Pacific Railway," claiming that Ellensburgh owed "no allegiance to corporation influence."
The Walla Walla Journal predicted that "So long as Ellensburgh will insist on spelling the name with an 'h' at the end, we fear that the superfluous letter will be the straw that will break the camel's back." Whether or not the "h" cost Ellensburgh the election, the city finished third in the capital campaign with 12,833 votes, to North Yakima's 14,711, and Olympia's 25,490. No city receiving a majority, a runoff was held among the top three contenders in 1890. This time Olympia decisively won the election with 37,413 votes, against North Yakima's 6,276 and Ellensburgh's 7,722.
Water Rights and Tidelands
In the convention, Mires served as chairman of the Committee on Water Rights and also served on the Judiciary Committee. The issue of water rights was of considerable importance in irrigated Eastern Washington. Mires' committee initially proposed recognition of previous appropriations of water, declaring that all water not previously appropriated was public property dedicated to the use of the people. The committee's proposed article established a priority of appropriation, giving domestic use the highest priority. The convention members rejected the committee's proposed article as overly legislative, and sent the article back for a second draft. The revised article simply provided that, "The use of the waters of this state for irrigation, mining and manufacturing purposes shall be deemed a public use." This enabled the legislature to establish a system of water rights, and also authorized eminent domain proceedings to establish water rights and easements to obtain water.
Mires played an important role in engineering a compromise to one of the thorniest issues in the entire convention, ownership of the tidelands. The delegates were virtually deadlocked during the final week of the convention debating whether the tidelands should be held in perpetuity, leased, or sold. The owners of waterfront property in the Puget Sound cities, including the railroads, exerted tremendous pressure. Mires recorded on August 15, the week before the end of the convention, "There seems to be a strong tendency to throw away the valuable rights of the future state. Corporate influence seems to have too much sway."
The night before the convention adjourned, Mires met with T. L. Stiles of Tacoma and Allen Weir of Port Townsend:
In the evening I called at T. L. Stiles' rooms to discuss the advisability of passing something ref. to tidelands as he has been one of the vigorous opponents. Allen Weir was there also. We agreed on an article. Stiles drew it. Each agreed to not oppose it. I am to introduce it. Weir joined us on several drinks of whiskey.
The compromise crafted by Mires, Stiles and Weir declared the state ownership of the tidelands, allowed anyone to assert their claim in the courts, and left the problem to the legislature. The article passed by a vote of 50 to 20. Mires tersely observed, "So ended the great strife."
Mires' Later Life
Mires continued actively to practice law and to participate in the political process until his death in 1936 at the age of 84, serving as president of the Washington State Bar Association in 1901, Ellensburgh city attorney for three years, Kittitas County Prosecuting Attorney for two years, state legislator for one term, Kittitas County Superior Court Judge for a brief time, and actively participating in Republican politics.
Mires remained vigorous to the end. Mires was almost 80 years old when his good friend and fellow delegate George Turner passed away in January 1932. Mires left Ellensburgh on the train at 4:10 a.m., attended Turner's funeral in Spokane, went to the cemetery in the sub-zero winter weather, and returned home the same day, arriving at 2:10 a.m. He arose that day at 9:00 a.m., went to the office through the snow, and worked all day. In 1936, a month before his death at age 84, Mires attended an old pioneers dance, and recorded that, "I danced many square dances."
Two weeks before his death Austin Mires was again recognized for his part in the history of Ellensburgh:
In evening [daughter] Eve and I attended celebration of the 50th anniversary of Ellensburgh, the coming of the NPRR et al. Immense crowd. Gov. Martin made a good American speech. They presented me an immense cake as first mayor of Ellensburgh. When they called on me to speak the whole audience arose and cheered.
Austin Mires' final diary entry was February 27, 1936. He died a week later, leaving James Hungate as the last surviving delegate to the Washington Constitutional Convention.
NOTE ON SOURCES:
The papers of Austin Mires, including his diaries, were purchased by the Washington State University Library. The Library has published a very helpful index to Mires' papers. I greatly appreciate the assistance of Lawrence Stark, Assistant Archivist at the WSU Libraries. Dr. Arthur S. Beardsley wrote two thorough articles on efforts to relocate the capital, published in Vol. 32, Pacific Northwest Quarterly, pp. 239-87 and 401-24 (1941). The Quarterly also carried an excellent article on early day Ellensburgh by Samuel Mohler, "Boom Days in Ellensburgh, 1888 -1891," 36 P.N.Q. 289 (1945).
Footnotes
[1]The "h" was dropped from "Ellensburgh" at the request of the Post Office. This article uses the 1889 spelling.