Washington is located six miles northeast of St. George in Washington County and had a population in 1990 of 4,198. Its form of government is a mayor and city council with a city manager.

Washington was settled by the first missionaries to the Cotton Mission in 1857. The growing and processing of cotton were the major reasons for its settlement and existence until the turn of the century. Ten families under the leadership of Samuel Adair and twenty-eight families led by Robert Covington arrived in May 1857. The settlement in this raw, barren valley in Utah Territory was organized as a branch of the Harmony Ward by Isaac C. Haight, who presided over the Parowan LDS Stake. At this time, the name Washington was chosen in honor of the nation's first president, and civic and religious leaders were sustained.

The pioneers prepared the ground for corn and went to work making dams and ditches while they lived in tents, wagons, or dugouts. Most of the settlers were Mormon converts who had formerly lived in the South where cotton was the chief crop. Their call was to grow cotton to ensure the independence and self sufficiency of Zion.