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The history of Olympia, Washington, includes long-term habitation by Native Americans, charting by a famous English explorer, settlement of the town in the 1840s, the controversial siting of a state college in the 1960s and the ongoing development of arts and culture from a variety of influences.
Olympia is situated at the extreme southern tip of Puget Sound on Budd Inlet. The site of Olympia was home to Lushootseed-speaking peoples for thousands of years. The abundant shellfish in the tideflats and the many salmon-spawning streams entering Puget Sound at this point made it a productive food-gathering area. Many tribes shared access to these resources, including Squaxin, Nisqually, Puyallup, Chehalis, Suquamish, and Duwamish. According to early settlers' accounts, natives called the present site of Olympia "Cheet Woot" or "Schictwoot", meaning "the place of the bear."
The first recorded visit by Europeans was in 1792 when Peter Puget and a crew from the British Vancouver Expedition charted the site. In 1833, the Hudson's Bay Company established Fort Nisqually, a trading post at Sequalitchew Creek near present-day DuPont, Washington. As the fur trade declined, the HBC diversified, forming a subsidiary called Pugets Sound Agricultural Company and converted former trade posts including Fort Nisqually into working farms. The U.S. Exploring Expedition under Lt. Charles Wilkes explored the Puget Sound region in 1841. They camped near Fort Nisqually while they charted the area and named Budd Inlet after expedition member Thomas A. Budd.
The first known European to reside at the future site of Olympia was Thomas K Otchin, an English Hudson Bay Company employee who took up a claim in 1841 but abandoned it by 1842. [1]
American settlers came to the area in the 1840s, drawn by the water-power potential of Tumwater Falls and established nearby "New Market," now known as Tumwater, the first American settlement on Puget Sound. The site was the northern end of the "Cowlitz Portage," the overland trail between the Cowlitz River and Puget Sound. In a time when water travel was the easiest form of transportation, Olympia's location on the north end of the main route through the area made it a crossroads for regional trade.
In 1846 Edmund Sylvester and Levi Lathrop Smith jointly claimed the land that now comprises downtown Olympia. Smith built his cabin and enclosed two acres for a garden and livestock near the current intersection of Capitol Way and Olympia Avenue. In 1848 Smith was elected to the Oregon Provisional Legislature. In the same year, while canoeing to Tumwater, he had a seizure and died by drowning. His untimely death in 1848 left his partner and friend, Sylvester the sole owner of the land on which he platted the future townsite. [2] Early names for the settlement included "Smithfield" and "Smithter" in honor of Levi Smith. In 1853 the town settled on the name Olympia, at the suggestion of local resident Isaac N. Ebey, due to its view of the Olympic Mountains to the northwest.
At the request of the Hudson's Bay Company, French Catholic missionaries established Mission St. Joseph of Newmarket and school in the 1848 at Priest Point near the future townsite for the conversion of natives to Catholicism.
In 1851, the U.S. Congress established the Customs District of Puget Sound and Olympia became the official customs port of entry requiring all ships to call at Olympia first. In 1854, the customs house moved to Port Townsend at the entrance to Puget Sound to better monitor shipping activity. In 1852, Olympia became the county seat of the newly organized Thurston County which at the time was still part of Oregon Territory.
In about 1853, Ezra Meeker says that Olympia contained about 100 inhabitants; it had 3 stores, a hotel, a livery stable, a saloon, and a weekly newspaper called The Columbian, which was in its 30th publish. [3]
By the early 1850s American settlers began agitating to separate the area north of the Columbia River from Oregon Territory. The agitation resulted in Congress creating Washington Territory. Isaac I. Stevens served as its first governor. Upon his arrival in 1853, Stevens designated Olympia capital of the new territory. The first territorial legislature convened early in 1854 at the Parker and Colter store on Main Street (now Capital Way) between State Street and Olympia Ave. Olympia's Daniel Bigelow represented Thurston County in the first three legislatures. His family home still stands, now known as Bigelow House Museum, Olympia's oldest surviving home.
The city grew steadily until 1873, when the Northern Pacific Railroad building a line toward Puget Sound unexpectedly bypassed Olympia, choosing Tacoma as its west coast terminus. Alarmed by the loss of the railroad, Olympia residents set to work building their own rail connection to the main line at Tenino. Citizens formed a private corporation to raise money and build a connection. One of the early contributors was black businesswoman, Rebecca G. Howard, whose contribution of 80 acres of land was used by the committee to encourage like contributions. The corporation used both volunteer labor and contract Chinese workers to complete a narrow gauge line by 1878. The little railroad served as Olympia's only railroad connection until the Northern Pacific built a spur to Olympia in 1891.
After Washington achieved statehood in 1889, Olympia continued as the state's capital city. Construction of the current Washington State Capitol began in 1912, with the prominent Legislative Building, one of the largest in the nation, completed in 1928. The building's dome is the fourth largest free-standing masonry dome in the world.
Aside from its role as the seat of state government, Olympia was a fairly typical Pacific Northwest town. Early on, extraction industries such as logging and oystering were the basis of much of the economy. By the twentieth century, sawmilling, fruit canning, and other industrial concerns comprised its economic base. Olympia also served as a shipping port for materials produced from the surrounding countryside, including sandstone, coal, and agricultural products.
Olympia is often associated with the Olympia Brewing Company, which from 1896–2003 brewed Olympia Beer, even though the brewery was actually located in Tumwater. The Olympia Brewing Company began producing beer in 1896 at a site along the Deschutes River and continued until Prohibition. After Prohibition ended, a new brewery was erected just upstream from the original site. This brewery was eventually purchased by SABMiller and closed on July 1, 2003.
Scandinavian immigrants founded two cooperative plywood mills after World War I. During World War I and World War II, there were also increased influxes of workers attracted by wartime industries including shipbuilding.
Periodic earthquakes affect the Olympia area. The 1949 earthquake damaged many historic downtown buildings beyond repair, and they were demolished. Others were retrofit with new facades to replace the damaged Nineteenth century wood and glass storefronts. Subsequently, much of Olympia's downtown reflects mid-twentieth-century architectural trends. Olympia also suffered significant damage from the 1965 Puget Sound and 2001 Nisqually earthquakes. It was the closest major city to the epicenter of the 2001 event.
Since the 1960s Olympia has lost much of its earlier waterfront industry, including lumber and plywood mills, shipbuilding, power pole manufacture and other concerns. While the shipping port and log staging area remains, Olympia's waterfront area has gentrified since the 1980s.
In 1967, the state legislature approved the creation of The Evergreen State College near Olympia, mostly due to the efforts of progressive Republican Governor Daniel J. Evans. Evans later served as president of the college, leaving Evergreen in 1983 when he was appointed to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by Senator Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson's death.
Because of the college's presence, Olympia has become a hub for artists and musicians (many of whom have been influential in punk, post-punk, anti-folk, lo-fi and other music trends (see Olympia music scene). In 2003 Outside Magazine named Olympia one of the best college towns in the nation for its vibrant downtown and access to outdoor activities. [4]
Olympia is a regional center for social justice and environmental activism. Olympia was the hometown of activist Rachel Corrie. Olympia has been the site of direct-action opposition to the Iraq War. [5]
Olympia hosts the state's largest annual Earth Day celebration, Procession of the Species, a community arts-based festival and parade. Also popular is the Olympia farmer's market, [6] the second largest in Washington State, as well as the locally based Olympia Food Co-op. [7]
Olympia is the capital of the U.S. state of Washington and the county seat and most populous city of Thurston County. It is 60 miles (100 km) southwest of the state's most populous city, Seattle, and is a cultural center of the southern Puget Sound region.
Thurston County is a county located in the U.S. state of Washington. As of the 2020 census, its population was 294,793. The county seat and largest city is Olympia, the state capital.
The Deschutes River is a 50-mile-long (80 km) river in the U.S. state of Washington. Its headwaters are in the Bald Hills in Lewis County, and it empties into Budd Inlet of Puget Sound at Olympia in Thurston County. It was given its name by French fur traders, who called it Rivière des Chutes, or "River of the Falls", a translation of the First Nations name for the site.
George Washington Bush was an American pioneer and one of the first African-American non-Amerindian settlers of the Pacific Northwest.
The Olympia Brewing Company was a brewery in the northwest United States, located in Tumwater, Washington, near Olympia. Founded in 1896 by Leopold Friederich Schmidt, it was bought by G. Heileman Brewing Company in 1983. Through a series of consolidations, it was acquired by Pabst Brewing Company in 1999; the Tumwater brewery was closed in 2003.
The Tumwater Falls are a series of cascades on the Deschutes River in Tumwater, Washington, United States. They are located near where the river empties into Budd Inlet, a southerly arm of Puget Sound in Olympia.
The Puget Sound War was an armed conflict that took place in the Puget Sound area of the state of Washington in 1855–56, between the United States military, local militias and members of the Native American tribes of the Nisqually, Muckleshoot, Puyallup, and Klickitat. Another component of the war, however, were raiders from the Haida and Tlingit who came into conflict with the United States Navy during contemporaneous raids on the native peoples of Puget Sound. Although limited in its magnitude, territorial impact and losses in terms of lives, the conflict is often remembered in connection to the 1856 Battle of Seattle and to the execution of a central figure of the war, Nisqually Chief Leschi. The contemporaneous Yakima War may have been responsible for some events of the Puget Sound War, such as the Battle of Seattle, and it is not clear that the people of the time made a strong distinction between the two conflicts.
Capitol Lake is a 3 kilometer long, 260-acre (1.1 km2) artificial lake at the mouth of Deschutes River in Tumwater/Olympia, Washington. The Olympia Brewery sits on Capitol Lake in Tumwater, just downstream from where the Tumwater Falls meet the artificial lake. The Washington State Department of Enterprise Services (DES) manages the lake, as part of The Washington State Capitol Campus.
Naches Pass is a mountain pass in the Cascade Range in the state of Washington. It is located about 50 miles (80 km) east of Tacoma and about 50 miles (80 km) northwest of Yakima, near the headwaters of tributary streams of the Naches River on the east and the Greenwater River on the west. The boundaries of Pierce, King, Kittitas, and Yakima counties come together at the pass. The pass lies on the boundary between the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie and Wenatchee National Forests, about 10 miles (16 km) northeast of Mount Rainier National Park. There are no roadways or railways crossing the pass.
Budd Inlet is an inlet located at the southern end of Puget Sound in Thurston County, Washington. It is the southernmost arm of Puget Sound.
Michael Troutman Simmons was an American pioneer and one of the first white men to settle in the Puget Sound.
The Puget Sound Agricultural Company (PSAC), with common variations of the name including Puget Sound or Puget's Sound, was a subsidiary joint stock company formed in 1840 by the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC). Its stations operated within the Pacific Northwest, in the HBC administrative division of the Columbia Department. The RAC-HBC Agreement was signed in 1839 between the Russian-American Company and the HBC, with the British to now supply the various trade posts of Russian America. It was hoped by the HBC governing committee that independent American merchants, previously a major source of foodstuffs for the RAC, would be shut out of the Russian markets and leave the Maritime fur trade.
William Fraser Tolmie was a surgeon, fur trader, scientist, and politician.
State Route 510 (SR 510) is a state highway in Thurston County, Washington. The 13 miles (20.9 km) long highway extends southeast from an interchange with Interstate 5 (I-5) in Lacey to SR 507 in Yelm. SR 510 roughly parallels the Nisqually River, the border between Thurston and Pierce counties, between the Fort Lewis and Nisqually Indian Community area to Yelm.
Daniel Bigelow was a pioneer lawyer and politician in Olympia, Washington.
Squaxin Park is a public park located in Olympia, Washington. Established in 1905, it was the city's first waterfront park, providing access to the Budd Inlet of Puget Sound. The park was formerly known as Priest Point Park, but was renamed in 2022 after the Olympia City Council unanimously voted to change it to honor the local Squaxin island Tribe.
The Puget Sound region is a coastal area of the Pacific Northwest in the U.S. state of Washington, including Puget Sound, the Puget Sound lowlands, and the surrounding region roughly west of the Cascade Range and east of the Olympic Mountains. It is characterized by a complex array of saltwater bays, islands, and peninsulas carved out by prehistoric glaciers.
Fort Cowlitz or Cowlitz Farm was an agricultural operation by the British Puget Sound Agricultural Company (PSAC), a subsidiary of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC). It was located on the Cowlitz plains, adjacent to the west bank of the Cowlitz River and several miles northeast of modern Toledo, Washington. The farm was begun during spring of 1839, and its produce soon supplied HBC posts in New Caledonia and Columbia Departments. In the RAC-HBC Agreement, the Russian-American Company received at Novo-Arkhangelsk grain and dairy products from the PSAC along with manufactured goods. Fort Cowlitz produced most of the Company wheat quotas, and its fellow PSAC station Fort Nisqually tended most of the sheep and cattle flocks. By the expiration of the agreement in 1850, Cowlitz Farm wasn't able to meet Russian supply demands.
South Puget Sound is the southern reaches of Puget Sound in Southwest Washington, in the United States' Pacific Northwest. It is one of five major basins encompassing the entire Sound, and the shallowest basin, with a mean depth of 37 meters (121 ft). Exact definitions of the region vary: the state's Department of Fish and Wildlife counts all of Puget Sound south of the Tacoma Narrows for fishing regulatory purposes. The same agency counts Mason, Jefferson, Kitsap, Pierce and Thurston Counties for wildlife management. The state's Department of Ecology defines a similar area south of Colvos Passage.
The first schoolhouse in Olympia, Washington was built in 1852. According to an 1853 newspaper, it was one of three schools north of Cowlitz Landing, Washington, and the only public school of the three. Its foundation preceded public schools in other early Puget Sound region settlements; Steilacoom, the state's first town to incorporate, was taught out of a living room when the state's first school district was created there in 1854, and the landing of the Denny Party in Alki (Seattle) was less than one year prior.