Talk:List of governors of Washington

Acting governors

There were three acting governors for Washington Territory, as can be seen at:

• "Governors of Washington Territory and Washington State". HistoryLink.org. 2003-05-11.

Currently, none of these men are listed in this article. Is there any interest in integrating these persons into the article, either as footnotes, in the marginal note column, as a separate table, or directly into the table of Washington Territory governors? — Myasuda (talk) 01:10, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

If it's simply a matter of, "They were secretary of the territory when there was no governor" typically people don't include those as acting governors, unless it's a notable case (like on the List of Governors of Arkansas how Robert Crittenden held lots of power and was the first 'governor' of the territory, despite never being appointed to the office; nonetheless, he is mentioned only in prose and not in the list). First we'd need a source with more detail. --Golbez (talk) 13:34, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

That sounds like a rather subjective criteria for inclusion. . . an objective criteria would be an official site such as [1]. Nevertheless, we can look and see that Charles H. Mason, for example, performed consequential actions and participated in consequential correspondence during his terms as can be seen at [2] and [3]. — Myasuda (talk) 01:21, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

The electronic document [4] appears to have some problems with it, but if one could obtain the material source, there are (per the table of contents) biographical sketches of McGill and Turney on pages 75-76 and 91-92. — Myasuda (talk) 13:25, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Actually, it turns out that it is possible to open [5] so that the full document is accessible. Some partial excerpts (to allow a more informed decision on this article to be made):

From page 15 (regarding Mason): Due to the fact that the governors appointed during those years were frequently away from their posts, it fell to his lot to act as chief executive on several occasions. Despite his lack of experience he was an able man who selected his counselors wisely and was universally esteemed by those who knew him. Mason's message of December 7, 1855 was submitted to the legislative assembly while Governor Stevens was away on a nine-month treaty-making expedition east of the mountains. It was during this interval that the councils with the Yakima, Flathead, Blackfoot and other Indian tribes were held.

Page 75: Henry M. McGill, appointed to succeed Charles H. Mason as secretary of the territory in November, 1859, became acting governor in May, 1860, when Richard Gholson returned to Kentucky. McGill was an Irish immigrant who had come to the United States as a boy six years of age. Having taken up the practice of law, he journeyed west to San Francisco during 1857 but returned to Washington, D. C. the following year where he served for a time as President Buchanan's private secretary and later, in 1859, as a commissioner of the Court of Claims. Acquainted with problems of territorial government through his experience as secretary, and possessed of considerable executive ability and political sagacity, he discharged the duties of the governor's office with energy and decision. He was replaced in the summer of 1861 by President Lincoln's appointee, L. J. S. Turney

Page 91: L. Jay S. Turney of Illinois became secretary and acting governor of Washington Territory in the summer of 1861. A personal friend of President Lincoln, he was appointed to succeed Henry M. McGill. At the same time William H. Wallace was named governor but he resigned the office without qualifying, when nominated (and later elected) by the Republicans as territorial delegate to Congress. Turney therefore held the executive position until Governor Pickering arrived in June, 1862.

— Myasuda (talk) 03:18, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

From the above snippets, it does sound like "ordinary" secretaries who were acting governors. Thus, I agree with Golbez that they shouldn't be included.
Generally, I don't see acting territorial governors, acting presidents, acting college presidents, etc in lists on Wikiepedia, unless the institution they become "acting" of defines them as "not acting". An example is the current West Virginia Governor. Upon the previous governor's resignation, Senate President Tomblin became the acting governor as defined by WV's constitution. But, West Virginia has listed him as their 35th governor. Please note that Territorial Governor is a federal office and not a territory's. Bgwhite (talk) 07:05, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Amazing Layout

Well done on this page. This List of governors page. Let's have three different tables. Quality! --66.188.84.18 (talk) 15:19, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Governors of the Territory of Washington: sourcing

I've googled the source for the last sentence in the said section, but had no success. Could anyone help please? --Синкретик (talk) 12:57, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on List of Governors of Washington. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110629023725/http://www.nga.org/files/pdf/BOS4-9.pdf to http://www.nga.org/Files/pdf/BOS4-9.pdf
• Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.nga.org/portal/site/nga/menuitem.8fd3d12ab65b304f8a278110501010a0?submit=Submit&State=WA

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 09:18, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on List of Governors of Washington. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100129011137/http://www.commerce.gov/NewsRoom/PressReleases_FactSheets/PROD01_007824 to http://www.commerce.gov/NewsRoom/PressReleases_FactSheets/PROD01_007824

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 07:43, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on List of Governors of Washington. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130910071351/http://www.salaries.wa.gov/documents/FinalSalarySchedule.pdf to http://www.salaries.wa.gov/documents/FinalSalarySchedule.pdf
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100617174102/http://gov.idaho.gov/fyi/history/history_1859-62.html to http://gov.idaho.gov/fyi/history/history_1859-62.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 01:38, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:List of Governors of New York which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 14:32, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Jay Inslee official portrait 2020 (cropped).jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 09:49, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

New citations

@Golbez: Can you please harmonize the citations to resemble those previously used in the article (which is a stable FL)? It seems that many of the newspaper citations in particular use misleading "titles" (descriptors rather than the actual newspaper article titles). SounderBruce 01:15, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

I've gone through these alphabetically and this is the first time anyone's responded, so I guess I'm glad to find out someone cares. Yes, the citations are autogenerated based on the names I gave the clips, I have a plan on a future pass to go through and fix the cites, adding author info, etc, which isn't caught by the autogeneration. --Golbez (talk) 02:45, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

@Golbez: Any plans to come fix this? This list is in danger of losing its FL status with the citations in their current state, which fails WP:V. SounderBruce 03:40, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Genuine apologies. I don't necessarily think I was out of line, but I've been out of line in enough places in the last couple of days to make me doubt myself. Either way, I brought more heat than needed. I took it personal when you called my work misleading. I hope the changes are what you were looking for. --Golbez (talk) 02:23, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

I also must apologize. It was jarring to see such a sudden change and I overreacted, seeing as similar articles have had misguided rewrites. SounderBruce 02:28, 4 August 2023 (UTC)