Asa Mercer

Asa Mercer left quite the legacy. As a young man, he was one of the early settlers of Seattle—where he helped found and became the first president of The University of Washington.

Mercer later imported women from the East to be potential wives for the overwhelmingly male population—the famous Mercer Girls.

He also became an important newspaper publisher and writer. In 1892, he covered the Johnson County (WY) War, offering the anti-cattleman perspective in The Banditti of the Plains (his writings led someone to torch his newspaper offices).