May 31-The Grand Army of the Republic, the fraternal organization for soldiers of the Civil War, was formed in 1866. Thousands of GAR members moved to the Pacific Northwest as the U.S. population spread to Western states. The group organized into state units, called departments. The department of Washington scheduled its seventh annual "grand encampment" in Spokane on April 25 -26, 1889. The state commander was J.W. Sprague, a Civil War general who was now a Northern Pacific Railroad superintendent.