Greg Griffith
Greg Griffith has served the Olympia Historical Society & Bigelow House Museum (OHS & BHM) as President of the Board of Trustees from 2022 to the present, having been elected…
Ann Olson
A native Washingtonian, Ann was born in eastern Washington and raised in Tacoma. She moved to Olympia in January, 1971 and for most of those nearly 47 years has been…
SS Nisqually – 12/23/18
The S.S. Nisqually, a member of the Mosquito Fleet, steams along Puget Sound. The Mosquito Fleet is the name given to the dozens of small steamers that plied the waters…
Proffitt’s – 12/16/18
The Proffitt’s Department store was a fixture of downtown Olympia for many years. The building is now the site of the New Caldonia mini-mall on Fifth Avenue. Photograph selected and…
Frederick J.X. Miller – 12/2/18
Frederick J.X. Miller, shown here, was a prolific Thurston County writer and poet. He and his sisters donated the family property to the State of Washington provided it be maintained…
View from the Westside – 11/19/18
In this photograph from around 1904, we are looking across the Fourth Avenue Bridge towards downtown Olympia, from the Westside. Visible buildings that still exist include the Old State Capitol…
Jack Gimblet’s boxer – 11/4/18
Early Olympia saloon keeper Jack Gimblet had this professional photograph taken of his handsome boxer “Jerry” in this image from around the turn of the century. Photograph selected and captioned…
Sam McClellan – 10/21/18
Sam McClellan (or McClelland) was a businessman and chief of the Olympia Fire Department. He poses here in his uniform in a photograph from the late 1800s. Photograph selected and…
Roe sisters – 10/14/18
The two Roe sisters Jeannine and Sharon, along with their mother and an instructor, Mrs. Carl Neal, have fun with hand-made puppets as part of Olympia’s 1963 summer activity program.…
James Spirlock – 10/7/18
James T. Spirlock arrived in Thurston County in 1858, and settled in the Mima Mounds area. His property, now the Nelson Ranch, has been in the family ever since and…
Sun Wo – 9/23/18
Olympia photographer Ida Smith capture this photograph of Chinese entrepreneur Sun Wo in traditional garb in about 1890-1910. Chinese merchants were an important element of commerce in the 19th and…
Kenney family at Woodland Hotel
In this undated photograph, members of the Kenney family proudly pose in front of the Woodland Hotel that they operated. Woodland was the original name for the community that is…
Welcoming Pole at State Capital Museum – 9/9/18
In 1963 a welcoming pole was created for the State Capital Museum at the Lord Mansion that replicated the poles at the entrance to the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair. The…
Port of Olympia in 1910 – 9/2/18
This photograph by Asahel Curtis shows members of the Mosquito Fleet approaching Percival Landing at the Port of Olympia on an overcast day in 1910. The Sand Man tug is…
Bulletin – 9/1/18
September 1, 2018 Fall is just around the corner, bringing with it changing colors and fascinating History events! Today, we note with sadness the sudden death of accomplished area historian…
St. Peter introduces television in rooms – 8/26/18
In 1963, St. Peter Hospital, then located in West Olympia, introduced the opportunity for patients to have televisions in their rooms. Here, Mrs. Herb (Shirley) Legg, a volunteer at the…
Plaque dedication – 8/19/18
In 1913, a group of Olympia citizens, many of them early pioneers, gathered to dedicate a plaque at the site of the first Washington Territorial Assembly. This plaque is still…
5th Avenue Dam Construction – 8/12/18
Few landmarks still exist to identify this August 1949 scene as the future site of the 5th Avenue dam and bridge. This photograph was taken as construction was getting under…
August 1909 special session – 8/5/18
In 1909, a special summer session of the Legislature was called, resulting in Session lasting until mid-August. A group of young women, all legislative clerks, posed for a group photo…
Lower Capitol Way – 7/29/18
The Port of Olympia was the hub of commercial activity in Olympia’s earliest decades. By 1910, when this photograph was taken, it was in decline: even the Red Light District…
Earl Bean in 1963 – 7/22/18
Earl Bean came here from Russia in 1892 and joined his father Joseph in the scrap metal business. He parlayed this into hardware store Olympia Supply on the shore of…
View from Old State Capitol – 7/15/18
This photograph was taken about 1900 from the Old State Capitol Building (now Superintendent of Public Instruction). Dominating the image is the Olympia Hotel, which burned down in 1904. Other…
Natalie Riggin – 7/8/18
Natalie Riggin won Second Grand Prize in the national Pillsbury Bakeoff contest in 1956, when she was only a teenager. Her Hoot Owl cookies are still included in compilations of…
Trena Belsito Worthington with the Rosellinis – 6/17/18
Olympia attorney Trena Belsito Worthington, at left, confers with Governor Albert and First Lady Ethel Rosellini as they barbecue a fish on Capitol Campus. In addition to being a successful…
Fish at City Hall – 5/27/18
In this Daily Olympian photo from summer 1966, Olympia city staffers stock the water feature at the new City Hall with fish. Since the “moat” was never intended as a…
Tumwater Long Bridge – 5/20/18
In this early photograph from about 1880, we see the Tumwater Long Bridge spanning the Deschutes Estuary. The homes and businesses of Tumwater are in the background; they succumbed to…
Knights of Pythias Parade – 5/13/18
In June of 1894, during the “golden age of fraternalism” in America, members of the Grand Lodge Knights of Pythias parade up a rain- and mud-soaked Capitol Way in Olympia.…
1965 Earthquake – 4/29/18
A magnitude 6.7 earthquake hit the Pacific Northwest on April 29, 1965, causing 7 deaths and millions of dollars of damage. In this photograph from the Daily Olympian, a postal…
Olympia Voc Tech – 4/22/18
Olympia Vocational Technical Institute student Kent Loomey demonstrates a cathode ray oscilloscope in this photograph from 1963. The Institute (later South Puget Sound Community College) was located in the former…
Millersylvania CCC – 4/15/18
During the Depression, the Civilian Conservation Corps hired thousands of young men and put them to work building and improving public amenities. CCC members were responsible for building many of…
John Montgomery – 4/8/18
In this Daily Olympian photograph from 1966, Washington State Archivist Sid McAlpin puzzles over a jar of ashes of a person identified only as John Montgomery. No one knew who…
Anna and Maggie – 3/25/18
This sweet photograph from around 1870 commemorates the teenaged friendship of early Olympia residents Anna Pullen and Maggie Sutton. Anna later married printer Martin Kelly and Maggie became a teacher…
Peace Pilgrim – 3/18/18
Peace Pilgrim, born Mildred Lisette Norman, was an American non-denominational spiritual teacher and peace activist. Starting on January 1, 1953, in Pasadena, California, she adopted the name “Peace Pilgrim” and walked across the…
St. Peter Hospital – Sherman St
By the 1920s, St. Peter Hospital had outgrown its original location on what’s now Capitol Campus. The large structure shown here, in West Olympia on Sherman Street, was completed in…
St. Peter Hospital – 3/4/18
St. Peter Hospital was founded by the Sisters of Charity of the House of Providence in 1887, and served the needs of area residents, including many injured loggers. Its original…
Star Laundry – 2/25/18
This photograph of the jovial proprietors of the Star Laundry is one of a series, by photographer Robert Esterly, of local businesspeople. Located on Capitol Way in the bustling Port…
Dr. Lucie Cook
This photograph of Doctor Lucie Cook and her child is one of a series of local businesses and their owners taken by photographer Robert Esterly. Dr. Cook’s office was located…
Roger Easton pen pal – 2/11/18
Roger Easton, a teacher at Mountain View Elementary in Lacey, initiated an international pen pal program between his students and children from around the world. In addition to sending letters,…
Olympia Opera House – 2/4/18
Publisher John Miller Murphy built the Olympia Opera House on Fourth Avenue, about where Orca Books is now. As this photograph from 1890 shows, a trolley line ran by the…
Street vendor – 1/28/18
Photographer Robert Esterly took this photograph of an unnamed street vendor in 1914, as part of his series of local businesses and their proprietors. The photo was taken at the…
Ray Theater – 1/21/18
In the heyday of the motion picture industry, downtown Olympia had several movie theaters. The Zabel family owned several of them. This one, the Ray, was located at the corner…
District heating stack dismantled – 1/14/18
In the early 20th century, veneer plants in the Port of Olympia supplied surplus heat to a central plant that distributed steam heating to the area through underground pipes. The…
City Hall in 1966 – 1/7/18
The “O” shaped Olympia City Hall building, now the Lee Creighton Justice Center on Plum Street, was part of Olympia’s “Committee of the 60s” effort to improve the infrastructure of…
Lee, Elizabeth and Ralph House
Location: 118 19th Ave SW Local register; South Capitol National Historic Neighborhood Elizabeth and Ralph Lee House, ca. 1939, Thurston County Assessor, Southwest Regional Archives Elizabeth and Ralph Lee House today…
Lucas House
Location: 420 Carlyon St SE Local register Lucas House, 1953, Thurston County Assessor, Southwest Regional Archives Lucas House today (2018), photo by City of Olympia This home in the Carlyon neighborhood is…