Semple, Eugene, 1840-1908

Eugene Semple (1840-1908), the son of a U.S. senator from Illinois moved to Portland, Oregon in 1863. Semple served as Oregon state printer from 1870 to 1874, and from 1883-1899, he operated an unsuccessful shingle mill called the Lucia Mill Company in Vancouver, Washington. President Grover Cleveland chose Semple, a Democrat, to replace Republican Watson Squire as governor of Washington Territory, 1887-1889, a period of turbulence and expansive growth in the Pacific Northwest. Semple lost his bid to become the first governor of the newly admitted state of Washington in 1889, but in 1890 he served as the Washington State Harbor Line commissioner. Semple was a major promoter and financier of the south Seattle ship canal, a project begun in 1895 to connect Lake Washington with the Seattle harbor in Puget Sound. The canal was never completed, and in 1903 Semple resigned as president of the Seattle and Lake Washington Waterway Company.

From the description of Eugene Semple scrapbooks, 1880-1955. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 269151664

...