1885 in the United States

Incumbents

Federal Government">Federal government of the United States">Federal Government

• President: Chester A. Arthur , Grover Cleveland
• Vice President:
• * until March 4: vacant
• * March 4–November 25: Thomas A. Hendricks
• * starting November 25: vacant
• Chief Justice: Morrison Waite
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: John G. Carlisle
• Congress: 48th, 49th

  Governors

Lieutenant Governors

Events

January–March

• February 9 - The first Japanese arrive in Hawaii.
• February 16 - Charles Dow publishes the first edition of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The index stands at a level of 62.76, and represents the dollar average of 14 stocks: 12 railroads and two leading American industries.
• February 18 - Mark Twain publishes Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in the United States.
• February 21 - United States President Chester A. Arthur dedicates the Washington Monument.
• March 3 - A subsidiary of the American Bell Telephone Company, American Telephone and Telegraph, is incorporated in New York.
• March 4 - Grover Cleveland is sworn in as the 22nd President of the United States.

  April–June

• April 30
• * A bill is signed in the New York State legislature forming the Niagara Falls State Park.
• * Boston Pops Orchestra is formed.
• May - The Depression of 1882–85 ends.
• June 17 - The Statue of Liberty arrives in New York Harbor.

  July–September

• July 14 - Sarah E. Goode is the first female African-American to apply for and receive a patent, for the invention of the hideaway bed.
• July 23 - Former President and Civil War general Ulysses S. Grant dies in Mount McGregor, New York.
• August 25 - Author Laura Ingalls Wilder marries Almanzo Wilder.
• September 2 - The Rock Springs massacre occurs in Rock Springs, Wyoming; 150 white miners attack their Chinese coworkers, killing 28, wounding 15, and forcing several hundred more out of town.
• September 8 - Saint Thomas Academy is founded in Minnesota.

  October–December

• October 13 - The Georgia Institute of Technology is established in Atlanta, Georgia as the Georgia School of Technology.
• November 25 - Vice President Thomas A. Hendricks dies in office.
• December 1 - The U.S. Patent Office acknowledges this date as the day Dr Pepper is served for the very first time; the exact date of Dr Pepper's invention is unknown.

  Undated

• The first skyscraper is built in Chicago, Illinois, USA.
• Michigan Technological University opens its doors for the first time in what is to become the Houghton County Fire Hall.
• Camp Dudley, the oldest continually running boys' camp in America, is founded.

  Ongoing

• Gilded Age
• Depression of 1882–85

  Sport

• August 29 - John L. Sullivan becomes First World Heavyweight Boxing Champion.
• September 30 - The Chicago White Stockings clinch their Third National League pennant with a 2–1 win over the New York Giants.

  Births

• January 7 - Edwin Swatek, swimmer and water polo player
• January 15 - Grover Lowdermilk, baseball player
• January 27
• * Jerome Kern, musical theater composer
• * Harry Ruby, musician, composer and writer
• February 7 - Sinclair Lewis fiction writer, recipient of Nobel Prize in Literature in 1930
• February 13 - Bess Truman, First Lady of the United States, Second Lady of the United States
• February 17 - Steve Evans, baseball player
• March 6 - Ring Lardner, writer
• April 1 - Wallace Beery, actor
• May 2
• * Hedda Hopper, columnist
• * Lee W. Stanley, cartoonist
• May 7 - George "Gabby" Hayes, Western film character actor
• May 14 - Ben J. Tarbutton, businessman and politician
• May 30 - Arthur E. Andersen, accountant
• July 4 - Louis B. Mayer, film producer
• September 7 - Elinor Wylie, poet and novelist
• October 3 - Sophie Treadwell, dramatist and journalist
• October 30 - Ezra Pound, poet
• December 2 - George Minot, physiologist, recipient of Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1934
• December 19 - King Oliver, jazz cornet player and bandleader
• December 26 - Bazoline Estelle Usher, African American educator

  Deaths

• January 13 - Schuyler Colfax, 17th Vice President of the United States from 1869 to 1873
• January 24 - Martin Delany, African American abolitionist, journalist and physician
• February 12 - Alexandre Mouton, U.S. Senator from Louisiana from 1843 to 1846
• March 17 - Susan Warner, religious and children's writer
• May 4 - Irvin McDowell, Union Army officer known for defeat in the First Battle of Bull Run
• May 17 - Jonathan Young, U.S. Navy commodore
• May 19 - Robert Emmet Odlum, swimming instructor, dies as result of becoming the first person to jump from the Brooklyn Bridge
• May 20 - Frederick Theodore Frelinghuysen, 29th United States Secretary of State
• July 23 - Ulysses S. Grant, 18th President of the United States from 1869 to 1877
• August 10 - James W. Marshall, contractor, builder of Sutter's Mill
• September 3 - William M. Gwin, U.S. Senator from California from 1850 to 1855 and from 1857 to 1861
• October 5 - Thomas C. Durant, railroad financier
• October 29 - George B. McClellan, soldier, civil engineer, railroad executive and politician
• November 25 - Thomas A. Hendricks, 21st Vice President of the United States from March to November 1885
• December 8 - William Henry Vanderbilt, entrepreneur
• December 13 - Benjamin Gratz Brown, politician
• December 15 - Robert Toombs, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1853 to 1861
• December 29 - James E. Bailey, U.S. Senator from Tennessee from 1877 to 1881