Editing Covington, Washington (section)

==History==

The area presently known as Covington was originally known as Jenkins Prairie. Between 1899 and 1900, the [[Northern Pacific Railway]] built the Palmer Cutoff between [[Auburn, Washington|Auburn]] and [[Palmer, Washington|Palmer]] to improve the company's primary east–west rail route across [[Stampede Pass]]. Richard Covington, a surveyor for the Northern Pacific, worked out of Fort Vancouver establishing the line from St. Paul, Minnesota, to Auburn.<ref name="HistoryLink">{{cite web |last=Kershner |first=Kate |date=February 26, 2013 |title=Covington — Thumbnail History |url=https://www.historylink.org/File/10337 |work=[[HistoryLink]] |accessdate=October 3, 2015}}</ref>

In 1900, during the building of the Palmer Cutoff, the Northern Pacific built several facilities in Covington. These included a 2,850-foot passing track, a 700-foot loading track, a second-class section house, a 24-man bunkhouse, a box tank, and a standpipe for watering steam locomotives.<ref name="HistoryLink"/> By 1908, the settlement was also home to the Covington Lumber Company, which had set up a mill capable of cutting 85,000 board feet of timber a day. NP's operations at Covington continued until the Great Depression; the facilities were then removed in 1941.{{cn|date=November 2024}}

Dairies replaced lumber as the predominant industry in the Covington area by the 1920s; several [[irrigation canal]]s were dug from local creeks to provide water during dry periods.<ref name="HistoryLink"/> A school district for Covington was established in 1937.<ref name=CovingtonHistory>[http://www.ci.covington.wa.us/covingtonlife/history.cfm A History of Covington, Washington] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090521160151/http://www.ci.covington.wa.us/covingtonlife/history.cfm |date=May 21, 2009}}</ref> Over the years, the area grew as an [[unincorporated area]] outside of [[Kent, Washington|Kent]] and was designated as a suburban development hub by the county government.<ref name="HistoryLink"/> A local citizens' group formed to incorporate Covington as its own city to control development planning; an attempt to also include [[Lake Meridian]] in the proposed city failed and it was instead annexed by Kent.<ref name="HistoryLink"/> The vote to incorporate Covington as a city passed on November 6, 1996, the same day a similar measure created neighboring [[Maple Valley, Washington|Maple Valley]].<ref>{{cite news |last=Hopkins |first=Jack |date=November 6, 1996 |title=Voters OK plans to create 2 cities |page=A17 |work=[[Seattle Post-Intelligencer]]}}</ref> Covington was officially incorporated as a city on August 31, 1997, and had approximately 12,200 residents at the time.<ref name="HistoryLink"/>