Looking Back’s theme for 2026 is Downtown by the Decades. In 1890, publisher John Miller Murphy erected the grand Olympia Theater, also known as the Olympia Opera House, at 509 4th Avenue. Over its thirty-year lifetime it hosted both local talent and visiting performers, including Mark Twain and John Philips Sousa. Image selected and captioned by Deborah Ross on behalf of the Olympia Historical Society and Bigelow House Museum, https://olympiahistory.org.
Unknown photographer, 1890s, courtesy State Capital Museum Collection, Washington State Historical Society