The railroad station was platted by John O. Courtright of the Oregon Improvement Company. He named the town and his son after one of the directors of that company.
The post office was established in 1882. It was located on Section 31, Township 17, Range 41 at an elevation of 1592 feet. The postmasters were:
Henry D Smith July 19, 1882
Jefferson T. Person October 25, 1882
William M Martzell April 29, 1889
Ralph P Moody August 31, 1893
Tyrah H Logsdon December 1, 1894
Elizabeth Garland January 16, 1935
Josephine F Johnson November 26, 1943
Teft Herfert July 12, 1962
Lorraine Jones 1974
In the very early days the post office was located in the business of Person and Crow. The stagecoach brought the mail as far as Colfax and then the postmaster at Endicott had to travel there and back on horseback to deliver and receive the mail. The real birth of the community was when the railroad arrived in 1883.
The Endicott school district was number 74. Some settlers say that there was a three months summer school before 1885, but in the summer and fall of 1885 there was a six months subscription school. The first public school was taught in a two story building on Rebel Creek. The building was originally owned by the Oregon Improvement Company for a mess hall and lodging place for their workers. In 1888 the school was moved to a two room house on C. Street. That early school had a great deal of competition. At one time in its history there were seven other schools within a ten miles radius of number 74. These were Allen, the Litzanberger, Thera, Hubbard number 75, Hamilton number 111, Lower Union Flat and Winona. Eventually many of these were absorbed by the Endicott district. The first school to consolidate with Endicott was Hamilton number 111 on July 18, 1935. The last was Winona about 1955. Some of the numbers that Endicott has had are 74, 194, 234, 238, and 308. In 1960 a new gym, lunchroom, four additional classrooms, restrooms, and locker rooms were added.
The Endicott area was the settling place for many of the German-Russian immigrants that settles in Whitman County between 1882 and 1907.
Philip Green was one of the first to arrive. One of Green's first activities was to build or excavate an earthen home on the hillside of his farm. This was similar to the ones dug by the first German colonists when they arrived along the Volga River in Russia.
Soon after the German- Russians came to Whitman County a group of them traveled to the County Land Office in Colfax and inquired about purchasing 160 acres of land.
Their request was most unorthodox because they wanted to buy it collectively and divide it up into eight equal parts. This action showed the pattern they had brought with them from Russi where the land was actually owned by the community as a whole and leased out to each family for private use or for inheritance.
Daily life in the commune was busy for everyone. Profits from the income were divided equally and everyone assisted in the construction of the first eight simple but adequate homes.
As time went on more and more immigrants from areas of Russi joined the settlement at Endicott. As many of the newcomers arrived they shared the three room houses of the immigrants already situated in the area.
The church had always been the center of practically all facets of German-Russian life. In 1883 the Endicott Evangelical Congregational Church was established. It is one of the oldest parishes of that denomination still in existence in Washington today. The first church building was not constructed until 1894.
As time went on Endicott has remained very much a settlement of the descendents of those early settlers.
Exerpt from Whitman County: From Abbiville to Zion by Edith E Erickson 1985
Reprinted with permission of the author.