1942
On October 5, the new high school on Bondurant Street opened for students. The community open house was November 20.
The first step to Washington having a hospital occurred as Roberta Lasance held a dinner for the physicians of Washington to assemble a staff. The first hospital was opened in November 1942 at 127 S. Main Street, but it was clear early on they were going to need more space.
Outside Christmas lights were banned for the holidays because of the war conservation effort. In that effort, Washington was also very good at the scrap drives that were needed and did more than its share of metal and rubber collecting.
Choral director Lawrence Gibson writes a new school song for WCHS, originally called the "Orange & Black Fight Song," now known as "Loyalty."
The Washington Real Estate Company opened on the square in the Herman Essig office. Known as W.R.C., the business still maintains a presence on the square in the same location.
An extremely early September 25 snowfall of over an inch damaged many trees and a killing frost that followed damaged a significant percentage of the Illinois soybean harvest.
August 12 Washington held a citywide blackout test in the event of invasion. For thirty minutes, every light in the city was off, everyone was in their house, and the telephone lines were to be kept clear.
Washington received word of the loss of Walker Danforth.