Looking Back’s theme for 2026 is Downtown by the Decades. Each week features a view of downtown Olympia over the years. In 1882, after a fire destroyed most of downtown Olympia, the Talcott Brothers built a new brick structure at 420 Capitol Way (then called Main Street). This cropped image from an 1887 envelope advertises the assortment of goods that they sold. The building still exists and is on the local Heritage Register. Image selected and captioned by Deborah Ross on behalf of the Olympia Historical Society and Bigelow House Museum, https://olympiahistory.org.
1887 envelope, cropped, courtesy Washington State Historical Society