Location: Swantown Marina (currently in dry dock)
formerly National, State and Local Registers, now delisted; Transportation
Sand Man, 1930s, from Tug Sand Man website |
Sand Man in 2013, photo by Deb Ross
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The tug Sand Man is a beloved emblem of the once-robust maritime industry in Olympia. It was built in 1908 and originally hauled sand and gravel for the Olympia Sand and Gravel Company (link is to listing for its headquarters). In 1925 it was sold to Delta Smyth, who owned a fleet of tugs on the Olympia waterfront (see Smyth Tugs and Barges site near Percival Landing. The photograph at above left shows Sand Man hauling a raft of logs on Budd Inlet. The superstructure in the left background is the Standard Oil yard, and the smokestacks are from the veneer plants in the port area. The tug was purchased and donated to the Sand Man Foundation, which lovingly restored it and made it available for free public tours. It was later discovered to have extensive deterioration and was moved to drydock, where ultimately it was determined to be nonrepairable. In 2026 the Olympia Heritage Commission voted to delist it from the local register.
Additional resources:
Sand Man website now defunct but retrievable via the Wayback Machine by searching tugsandman.org.
Copyright © 2022 Deborah Ross