← 1884 1883 1882 1885 in the United States → 1886 1887 1888
Decades:	1860s 1870s 1880s 1890s 1900s
See also:	History of the United States (1865–1918) Timeline of United States history (1860–1899) List of years in the United States

Events from the year 1885 in the United States.

• 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)

• 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.^[1]
• 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 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 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 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 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.

• The first skyscraper (the Home Insurance Building) is built in Chicago, Illinois, USA (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.

• Gilded Age (1869–c. 1896)
• Depression of 1882–85 (1882–1885)

• 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.

• 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)^[2]
• 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)^[3]
• 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)

• Eugene Prussing, lawyer and philanthropist^[4]

• 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)

• Timeline of United States history (1860–1899)

• Media related to 1885 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons