Eugene Semple (12 June 1840-28 August 1908) was the Democratic Governor of the Washington Territory from 9 April 1887 to 9 April 1889, succeeding Watson C. Squire and preceding Miles Conway Moore.
biography[]
Eugene Semple was born in Bogota, Colombia in 1840, the son of American ambassador James Semple. He was raised in Illinois before becoming editor of the Oregon Herald in Portland, Oregon and practicing law. He became state printer of Oregon in 1872 before moving to Vancouver, Washington in 1874 and thereafter to Seattle, running a lumber business. He served as Grover Cleveland's governor of the Washington Territory from 1887 to 1889, and he financed privately owned canals by allowing them to sell reclaimed tidelands, enabling him to create a canal connecting Elliott Bay to Lake Washington. He died in San Diego, California in 1908.