It’s a dreary, rainy December day in 1954, but Fourth Avenue is decked out in holiday greenery. As can be seen on the route sign, the street was part of Route 99, the West Coast’s main north-south thoroughfare, as well as Route 410, the main highway linking Aberdeen and Lewiston, Idaho. To accommodate increasing amounts of traffic, Fourth Avenue was “twinned” with State Avenue and made one-way, one of the first to do so in the West. Photograph selected and captioned by Deborah Ross on behalf of the Olympia Historical Society and Bigelow House Museum. For more information, visit olympiahistory.org.
Merle Junk photo, 1954, Susan Parish Collection, Southwest Regional Archives