Feb 2001
Bert Speelpenning
When we moved our family to Seattle in 1995, we quickly learned that Seattle was part of King County, named after Martin Luther King. I am pleased to live in a county named after King, who is one of my great heroes. King changed what it means to be an American much as Jefferson and Lincoln did before him - yet at a cost far short of war.
County government here clearly predates Martin Luther King. Seattle rose and came into its own during the Alaskan Gold Rush a century ago. Not much of a history compared to the places where I grew up, but there must have been a county, and it must have had a name, prior to Martin Luther King. I admit it never occurred to me to wonder what the county was called before. If I had, I might have guessed its prior name to be Rainier county, after the magnificent presence of Mount Rainier in our backyard. Or Sammamish county, after a local Indian tribe, and a river, one of the many "-mish" names you run into here, including Snohomish county to the North. Or Denny county, after Arthur Denny, or after any early Seattle denizens who survive in street names.
I was shocked and moved when, by accident, I learned what the older name of King county had been. I'm going to tell you - hold your breath. Turns out King county was - King county! King county just wasn't named after Martin Luther King before. Until 1986, King county was named after William Rufus DeVane King. This name didn't ring any bell for me - nor perhaps for you. King, the 13th vice president of the United States, elected on a pro-slavery ticket with Franklin Pierce shortly before the Civil War, died a week after taking the oath of office in 1853.
Some of our neighbors think the renaming of King county a non-event, and scoff at the purely symbolic nature of the act. Myself, I consider it a stroke of genius. Maximum effect at minimum cost over minimum opposition - the principle of co-opting at its best.
Though one might be left feeling sorry for old William Rufus who, it turns out, was no stranger himself to the power of naming. Andrew Jackson, says Sol Barzman in his 1974 book, nicknamed King "Miss Nancy", and it appears the name stuck.