Paragraph 1 One requirement for statehood is that a territory has to have a certain
population. According to The Washington Journey, "The population of a
territory needed to be at least 60,000” (98). This makes sense because you
wouldn't need to create a state if no one lived there. If there's very few people
there, it could just stay a territory. In the 1850s, Washington became a territory,
but wasn't yet eligible to be a state. By the late 1870s, the population had
grown large enough. Since we know the population was more than 60,000, the
first step toward statehood had been reached.