[passionfruit]

Civil war vets were offered land out West. That is how some of my people wound up in the Washington Territory.

[Klondike]

My G Grandfather got off the boat from Hamburg and enlisted with an Uncle in the Union Army. He went to Washington Territory and built a sawmill. Over the years fortunes went up and down until 1898 and the Gold Rush. That tough old German came back with a tidy fortune and kept it.
That was the dream that brought them to America and then to the West.

[mountainlyons]

Civil war vets were offered land out West. That is how some of my people wound up in the Washington Territory.

That is part of the answer. Carpet baggers taxed southern land owners out of existence so they went west where taxes were cheaper than the land.