Looking Back’s theme for 2026 is Downtown by the Decades. Between 1950 and 1951, Capitol Lake was created by damming the Deschutes River estuary at Fifth Avenue. This image from 1950 shows the beginning of dam construction, with the estuary being narrowed by the construction of massive earthworks. Image selected and captioned by Deborah Ross on behalf of the Olympia Historical Society and Bigelow House Museum, https://olympiahistory.org.
Unknown photographer, 1950, Susan Parish photograph collection, Washington State Archives