1885 in the United States

=== Federal government === • President: ::Chester A. Arthur (R-New York) (until March 4) ::Grover Cleveland (D-New York) (starting March 4) • Vice President: ::vacant (until March 4) ::Thomas A. Hendricks (D-Indiana) (March 4 – November 25) ::vacant (starting November 25) • Chief Justice: Morrison Waite (Ohio) • Speaker of the House of Representatives: John G. Carlisle (D-Kentucky) • Congress: 48th (until March 4), 49th (starting March 4) State governments ==Events==

becomes the 22nd U.S. president becomes the 21st U.S. vice president 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 (AT&T), is incorporated in New York. • March 4 – Grover Cleveland is sworn in as the 22nd president of the United States, and Thomas A. Hendricks is sworn in as the 21st vice president. 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 11 – San Diego Building and Loan Association founded, predecessor of Great American Bank. • 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 marries farmer Almanzo Wilder in Dakota Territory. • 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 as a seminary. October–December • October 10 – Removal of Hell Gate rocks: In the East River of New York City, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers sets off the largest ever explosion for a non-military purpose. • 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 – Dr Pepper is served for the very first time (as acknowledged by the U.S. Patent Office; the exact date of Dr Pepper's invention is unknown). Undated • The first skyscraper (the Home Insurance Building) is built in Chicago, Illinois (10 floors). • Michigan Technological University (originally Michigan Mining School) 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 (1869–c. 1896) • Depression of 1882–85 (1882–1885) == 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 (died 1966) • January 11 – Alice Paul, suffragist (died 1977) • January 15 – Grover Lowdermilk, baseball player (died 1968) • January 27 • Jerome Kern, musical theater composer (died 1945) • Harry Ruby, musician, composer and writer (died 1974) • February 7 – Sinclair Lewis fiction writer, recipient of Nobel Prize in Literature in 1930 (died 1951 in Italy) • February 13 – Bess Truman, First Lady of the United States, Second Lady of the United States (died 1982) • February 17 – Steve Evans, baseball player (died 1943) • February 18 – Richard S. Edwards, admiral (died 1956) • March 6 – Ring Lardner, writer (died 1933) • April 1 – Wallace Beery, actor (died 1949) • April 7 – Bee Ho Gray, Wild West star, silent film actor and vaudeville performer (died 1951) • April 13 – Vean Gregg, baseball player (died 1964) • May 2 • Hedda Hopper, columnist (died 1966) • Lee W. Stanley, cartoonist (died 1970) • May 7 – George "Gabby" Hayes, Western film character actor (died 1969) • May 14 – Ben J. Tarbutton, businessman and politician (died 1962) • May 30 – Arthur E. Andersen, accountant (died 1947) • June 29 – Andrew Tombes, comedian and character actor (died 1976) • July 4 – Louis B. Mayer, film producer (died 1957) • July 6 – Charles Wisner Barrell, writer (died 1974) • July 10 – Mary O'Hara, author and screenwriter (died 1980) • July 15 – Tom Kennedy, actor (died 1965) • July 22 – John Thomas Kennedy, general and Medal Honour recipient (died 1969) • August 15 – Edna Ferber, novelist, short story writer, and playwright (died 1968) • September 7 – Elinor Wylie (Elinor Morton Hoyt), poet and novelist (died 1928) • September 11 – Julian C. Smith, general (died 1975) • September 15 – James P. Boyle, politician (died 1939) • September 22 – George Gaul, actor (died 1939) • October 3 – Sophie Treadwell, dramatist and journalist (died 1970) • October 9 – Raymond DeWalt, inventor and businessman (died 1961) • October 30 – Ezra Pound, poet (died 1972 in Italy) • November 1 – Edgar J. Kaufmann, merchant and patron of Fallingwater (died 1955) • November 11 – George S. Patton, General (died 1945 in Heidelberg, Germany) • November 28 – John Willard, playwright and actor (d. 1942) • December 2 – George Minot, physiologist, recipient of Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1934 (died 1950) • December 6 – Ernest Palmer, cinematographer (died 1978) • December 10 – Elizabeth Baker, economist and academic (died 1973) • December 19 – King Oliver, jazz cornet player and bandleader (died 1938) • December 26 – Bazoline Estelle Usher, African American educator (died 1992) ==Deaths==

• January 13 – Schuyler Colfax, 17th vice president of the United States from 1869 to 1873 (born 1823) • January 24 – Martin Delany, African American abolitionist, journalist and physician (born 1812) • February 12 – Alexandre Mouton, U.S. Senator from Louisiana from 1843 to 1846 (born 1804) • March 17 – Susan Warner (pseudonym Elizabeth Weatherell), religious and children's writer (born 1819) • May 4 – Irvin McDowell, Union Army officer known for defeat in the First Battle of Bull Run (born 1818) • May 17 – Jonathan Young, U.S. Navy commodore (born 1826) • May 19 – Robert Emmet Odlum, swimming instructor, dies as result of becoming the first person to jump from the Brooklyn Bridge (born 1851) • May 20 – Frederick Theodore Frelinghuysen, 29th United States Secretary of State (born 1817) • July 23 – Ulysses S. Grant, 18th president of the United States from 1869 to 1877 (born 1822) • August 10 – James W. Marshall, contractor, builder of Sutter's Mill (born 1810) • September 3 – William M. Gwin, U.S. Senator from California from 1850 to 1855 and from 1857 to 1861 (born 1805) • October 5 – Thomas C. Durant, railroad financier (born 1820) • October 29 – George B. McClellan, soldier, civil engineer, railroad executive and politician (born 1826) • November 25 – Thomas A. Hendricks, 21st vice president of the United States from March to November 1885 (born 1819) • December 8 – William Henry Vanderbilt, entrepreneur (born 1821) • December 21 – George S Patton, General (born 1885) • December 13 – Benjamin Gratz Brown, politician (born 1826) • December 15 – Robert Toombs, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1853 to 1861 (born 1810) • December 29 – James E. Bailey, U.S. Senator from Tennessee from 1877 to 1881 (born 1821) ==See also==