Washington (state) Washington (state) Washington (), officially the State of Washington, is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Named for George Washington, the first president of the United States, the state was made out of the western part of the Washington Territory, which was ceded by Britain in 1846 in accordance with the Oregon Treaty in the settlement of the Oregon boundary dispute. It was admitted to the Union as the 42nd state in 1889. Olympia is the state capital; the state's largest city is Seattle. Washington is sometimes referred to as Washington State, to distinguish it
Capital punishment in Washington (state) execution, thus the method defaulted to hanging (which was the default method at the time). His execution was carried out without incident. On September 10, 2010, Washington became the second state, after Ohio, to use a single dose injection of sodium thiopental as opposed to the typical three drug protocol used in most other jurisdictions. The single-drug protocol was used during the execution of Cal Brown. A total of 110 executions have been carried out in the state and its predecessor territories since 1849. All but the most recent three were by hanging. As of 2017, the Washington State Department