Olympia is the capital of the U.S. state of Washington and the county seat and largest 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.
The 2001 Nisqually earthquake occurred at on February 28, 2001 and lasted nearly a minute. The intraslab earthquake had a moment magnitude of 6.8 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe). The epicenter was in the southern Puget Sound, northeast of Olympia, but the shock was felt in Oregon, British Columbia, eastern Washington, and Idaho. This was the most recent of several large earthquakes that occurred in the Puget Sound region over a 52-year period and caused property damage valued at $1–4 billion. One person died of a heart attack and several hundred were injured.
Seattle Public Schools is the largest public school district in the state of Washington. The school district serves the entire city of Seattle. As of 2018, 113 schools are operated by the district, which serve at least 47,000 students throughout the city.
State Route 8 (SR 8) is a state highway in Grays Harbor and Thurston counties, of the U.S. state of Washington. It extends 20.67 miles (33.27 km) from U.S. Route 12 (US 12) in the city of Elma, east to an interchange with US 101 about 5.90 miles (9.50 km) northwest of the state capital, Olympia. SR 8 intersects SR 108 west of McCleary. The route connects Elma and Olympia as part of a corridor between Aberdeen and the Puget Sound region.
The Washington State Capitol or Legislative Building in Olympia is the home of the government of the state of Washington. It contains chambers for the Washington State Legislature and offices for the governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state and treasurer and is part of a campus consisting of several buildings. Buildings for the Washington Supreme Court, executive agencies and the Washington Governor's Mansion are part of the capitol campus.
The California State Capitol is the seat of the Government of California, located in Sacramento, the state capital of California. The building houses the chambers of the California State Legislature, made up of the Assembly and the Senate, along with the office of the governor of California. The Neoclassical structure, designed by Reuben S. Clark, was completed between 1861 and 1874. Located at the west end of Capitol Park and the east end of the Capitol Mall, the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. The California State Capitol Museum is housed on the grounds of the capitol.
The Idaho State Capitol in Boise is the home of the government of the U.S. state of Idaho. Although Lewiston briefly served as Idaho's capital from the formation of Idaho Territory in 1863, the territorial legislature moved it to Boise on December 24, 1864.
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.
The Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, or OSPI, is the state education agency for the State of Washington. The agency is bound by the Washington State Legislature to implement state laws regarding education, including the 1993 education reform act which mandated the controversial WASL standards based assessment. The Superintendent of Public Instruction is sixth in the line of succession to the office of Governor of Washington. The current Superintendent of Public Instruction is Chris Reykdal.
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.
The 1949 Olympia earthquake occurred on April 13 at with a moment magnitude of 6.7 and a maximum Mercalli Intensity of VIII (Severe). The shock was located in the area between Olympia and Tacoma, and was felt throughout the state, as well as parts of Oregon, British Columbia, Idaho, and Montana. It is the largest recorded earthquake to occur in the Puget Sound region of Washington. Eight people were killed, a minimum of 64 people were injured, and the total damage is estimated at $25 million.
Washington ratified its constitution and held its first state elections in 1889, the year it was admitted to the union as a state. It established the positions of governor, lieutenant governor, Secretary of State, attorney general, state treasurer, state auditor, Commissioner of Public Lands, and Superintendent of Public Instruction. The position of insurance commissioner was legislatively established in 1907. All positions are elected to four-year terms, concurrent with presidential elections. Washington is one of three states that elects nine separate statewide officials, while six others elect ten.
The 1965 Puget Sound earthquake occurred at 08:28 AM PDT on April 29 within the Puget Sound region of Washington state. It had a magnitude of 6.7 on the moment magnitude scale and a maximum perceived intensity of VIII (Severe) on the Mercalli intensity scale. It caused the deaths of seven people and about $12.5–28 million in damage. There were no recorded aftershocks.
Joseph Henry Wohleb (1887–1958) was an American architect from Washington.
The Olympia Downtown Historic District is a historic district located in Olympia, Washington, the state's capital. The district, listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 2004, covers 17 blocks in downtown Olympia and includes 51 contributing properties.
The Joel M. Pritchard Building at the Washington State Capitol campus in Olympia was built in 1957–1958 to house the Washington State Library, which had outgrown its previous location in the basement of the Washington Supreme Court's Temple of Justice. The building's architect, Paul Thiry who also designed the Century 21 Exposition complex in Seattle, used Modern design incorporating the Wilkeson sandstone quarried a few tens of miles away and used in the state capitol and other buildings. It was the last monumental building added to the capitol campus and one of the few departures from the Olmsted Brothers' 1928 campus plan. It was described as "among the most important regional archetypes of mid-century architectural design and thought...a textbook on how Washingtonians looked at the future in the 1950s". It was named for Joel M. Pritchard, a U.S. Congressman from Washington and the state's Lieutenant Governor. Thiry won the American Institute of Architects/American Library Association Library Building Award for the design, the first such award to be presented. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015.
The Washington State Library is a government agency that operates public libraries in Washington state's prisons and mental hospitals, and maintains collections related to the state government. Based in Tumwater, it is a service of the Washington Secretary of State and was founded in 1853 as the Washington Territorial Library. The library has a collection of 2.25 million physical items and other online resources available to residents of the state.
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.
The Washington State Capitol Conservatory was a greenhouse on the grounds of the Washington State Capitol in Olympia, Washington. It was funded $25,000 in 1938, designed by architect Joseph Wohleb, and built in 1939 as a Works Project Administration project. In the 1990s it was noted the greenhouse was suffering foundation damage from soil settling of up to 65-foot (20 m) deep fill on which it was built. A 1995 report indicated that there was fear of a landslide causing catastrophe to the building, built next to a steep ravine where "a number of springs and wet areas were observed". Heritage Park's hillside trail climbs from Capitol Lake to a landing containing the Law Enforcement Memorial, adjacent to the conservatory. Due to safety concerns stemming from the settling, the conservatory was closed in 2008 and the building was demolished between 2020 and 2021. For a time it was used to store the Chief Shelton Story Pole after it was taken down in 2010. Until its closure it was open to the public and was an attraction for visitors to the State Capitol.
Pearl Anderson Wanamaker was an American educator and politician. She served in the Washington State Legislature from 1928 to 1940. She was also Washington's Superintendent of Public Instruction from 1941 to 1957. She was president of the National Education Association.
