Washington, the county seat of Washington county, is located northwest of the center of the county at the junction of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy and the Missouri Pacific railroads. It is an incorporated city of the third class, has a municipal waterworks, electric lights, an opera house, a $15,000 high school building, a public library housed in a $5,000 building, 3 banks, 2 weekly newspapers (the Republican-Register and the Palladium), first class hotels, telegraph and express offices, and an international money order postoffice with six rural routes. All lines of retail establishments and the professions are well represented. The population in 1910 was 1,547.

The town was founded in the spring of 1860 by a town company of which George G. Pierce was president. A "company house" was built to which each member of the campany[sic] contributed seven logs. In November of the same year Washington was made the county seat. The first school was opened by Miss Agnes Hallowell in 1861 in the "company house." The first stock of merchandise was put in by a Mr. Bowen. A building erected of perpendicular logs by E. Woolbert as a hotel was used as the first court-house and was known as the "Stockade court-house." When the war broke out the growth of the city was arrested and it did not begin again until the spring of 1866, when there was a large immigration. The first newspaper, the Western Observer, made its appearance in 1869, and a $9,000 school building was erected that year. In May, 1873, the town was organized as a city of the third class and the following officers were elected: Mayor, J. S. Vedder; clerk, E. N. Emmons; police judge, T. J. Humes; city attorney. J. W. Rector; treasurer, Charles Smith; marshal, M. Patrie. In 1877 the Central Branch of the Union Pacific R. R. reached this point and a new era of prosperity began. By 1880 there were nearly 1,000 inhabitants. The population in 1890 was 1,613, and in 1900 it was 1,575.