Between 2014 and 2026, the Olympia Historical Society and Bigelow House Museum selected and captioned Olympia-area images for the Sunday Olympian. This page features those images and may include additional information about them. You can use the Search button on our menu banner to search for specific photographs and subjects, or go to our Visual Resources dropdown menu.
Looking Back’s theme for 2026 is Downtown by the Decades. On February 28, 2001, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck the Puget Sound region, creating massive infrastructure damage in Olympia and elsewhere. This photograph shows the damage to the Olympia National Bank building at 5th and Capitol.
Steve Bloom photo 2001, Olympian archives
Looking Back’s theme for 2026 is Downtown by the Decades. In 1991, Olympia become the first small town outside of Seattle to host a Pride event. The organizers’ efforts produced the first Olympia Pride March that led from Marathon Park and ended with a rally at the State Capitol, drawing a crowd of over 300 people. By the early 2000s, Pride week was widely celebrated by local residents and businesses.
2012 Photograph of the Governor Hotel by Deborah Ross
The Sunday Olympian’s Looking Back theme for 2024 was Many Voices, celebrating our diverse and rich history. Gallewski Kaufman was a German Jewish immigrant, arriving in Olympia in the mid-1880s. He and his brother-in-law Ferdinand Toklas established the Toklas and Kaufman mercantile store, now the Mottman Building at Fourth Avenue and Capitol Way.
1891 Olympia Tribune Souvenir Edition, Washington State Library
Text © Deborah Ross and The Olympian 2024
Looking Back’s theme for 2025 featured Thurston County area photographers, artists, and their subjects. Ron Allen’s photographic career began with State Patrol, then led to his own studio; he photographed legislators, local people, and events. He was photographer for the Puyallup Fair for 47 years and is shown there in a photo from the 1960s.
Photos courtesy of the Allen family
Text © Deborah Ross and The Olympian 2025
The Sunday Olympian’s Looking Back theme for 2024 was Many Voices, celebrating our diverse and rich history. Harriet Speckart, shown here, was a niece of Olympia Brewing Company founder Leopold Schmidt. In 1905 she met Doctor Marie Equi, beginning a long relationship, including a jointly adopted daughter. Harriet’s mother and uncle then unsuccessfully attempted to deny Harriet access to a large inheritance, based on the “unnatural” relationship with Dr. Equi. Harriet and Marie are buried together in Portland, Oregon.
Photograph (of Harriet as a young girl) courtesy Oregon Historical Society
Text © Deborah Ross and The Olympian 2024
The Sunday Olympian’s Looking Back theme for 2024 was Many Voices, celebrating our diverse and rich history. Looking Back’s theme for 2024 is Many Voices, celebrating our rich and diverse history. Gustav Rosenthal was a very early Olympia merchant, arriving with his wife Katti here in 1863. The Rosenthals were among the Jewish families who settled here in early Territorial days. His store at the core of downtown Olympia at Fourth and Main (now Capitol) was described as “one of the best known in Southwest Washington.”
1891 photo, Olympia Tribune Souvenir Issue
Text © Deborah Ross and The Olympian 2024
The Sunday Olympian’s Looking Back theme for 2024 was Many Voices, celebrating our rich and diverse history. Pictured here is James Mars, African-American proprietor of the Our House restaurant on Fourth Avenue. Mars was born in New York and spent many years as a seafarer. He and his wife Mary Jane, neé Thomas, arrived in Olympia in 1870 and opened their restaurant, described as “a place where one can feel at home and enjoy home cooking.”
Image from 1891 Olympia Tribune Souvenir Issue
Text © Deborah Ross and The Olympian 2024
Looking Back’s theme for 2026 was Downtown by the Decades. Olympia was the hub of the music and performance art scene of the 1990s with several famed musicians, film-makers, and artists having their start here. For several years, the Capitol Theater hosted the Yo Yo a Go Go festival that featured established and up-and-coming performers including Sleater-Kinney, Eliot Smith, and Nirvana members.
Photo Courtesy Pat Castaldo, Yo Yo a Go Go cofounder, Wikimedia Commons
The Carlyon Fill in 1910-1911 added 29 blocks to the central peninsula of Olympia, adding most of what we now know as the port area. Just after the fill was completed, in May 1911, aviator Fred Wiseman piloted his tiny aircraft to make several landings in the newly filled area. The little airplane is now on display at the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum, as it was the first airplane to carry mail.
Asahel Curtis photo, 1911, Courtesy State Capital Museum collection, Washington State Historical Society, catalog C1943.2x.30
Text © Deborah Ross and The Olympian 2022
Looking Back’s theme for 2026 is Downtown by the Decades. In 1996, the City of Olympia acquired a parcel of property between Fourth and Fifth Avenue as part of the Heritage Park complex. A generous bequest funded the popular interactive Heritage Fountain, shown here in a City of Olympia image from around 1997.
In 1853, Charles Burmeister established one of the earliest saloons in Olympia. It was located on Fourth Avenue and Washington Street, where the State Theater is now. This photograph from the 1860s shows Burmeister, his wife, and others in front of the saloon. The building was later moved further west on Fourth Avenue but succumbed to the extension of downtown’s masonry buildings in the early 1900s.
1960s photograph, courtesy State Capital Museum collection, Washington State Historical Society, catalog C2019.0.145
Text © Deborah Ross and The Olympian 2020
”Committee Room X”, a/k/a Storeroom 405 at the Legislative Building, was a long-standing unofficial – and controversial – hangout for legislators seeking a break from the bustle of Legislative Session business. In this photo, George White obliterates a painting on the wall that depicted a donkey leapfrogging over an elephant.
Daily Olympian photograph, State Capital Museum Collection, Washington State Historical Society, catalog C1986.43.64.11.25.2.1
Text © Deborah Ross and The Olympian 2020
Looking Back’s theme for 2024 was Many Streams, celebrating our rich and diverse history. Jacob Bean immigrated to Olympia from Russia in 1902, bringing with him his family’s Torah (first five books of the Hebrew Bible). He, his wife Mollie, and their son Earl owned the business now known as Olympia Supply, still in existence in downtown Olympia. Jacob, Mollie, and their son Earl are pictured here around 1907. The Bean family’s involvement with the business spans three generations.
Photograph around 1907, courtesy Washington State Historical Society, State Capital Museum collection, catalog C1950.1326.1
Text © Deborah Ross and The Olympian 2024
A young Catherine Redpath gazes out the window of her home, located across from Sylvester Park. She was the daughter of Dr. Nathaniel Redpath and Lucy Maynard Redpath, prominent Olympia citizens. The home still exists but was moved to the South Capitol neighborhood in the 1920s.
1914 photo, unnamed photographer, courtesy State Capital Museum collection, Washington State Historical Society
Text © Deborah Ross and The Olympian 2019
A group of Native American children and their parents bear picket signs at the Rotunda of the Legislative Building to protest a Washington State Supreme Court decision that limited Indian fishing rights. One child, marching by the Rotunda’s Christmas tree, bears a sign reading “Santa Claus isn’t coming to my house. Do you know why?” Tribal fishing treaty rights were ultimately recognized in the Boldt decision of 1974.
Daily Olympian photo, December 1963, State Capital Museum collection, Washington State Historical Society, catalog C1986.43.63.12.23.2.1
Text © Deborah Ross and The Olympian 2019
A photograph from around 1870 captures the snow-clad home and store of Sam Williams at the northwest corner of Fourth and Main Street (now Capitol Way). Sam and his brother Charles eventually erected masonry buildings here. These, the three-story Mottman Building at the corner and the smaller Olympia Hardware building nearby, still exist and are on the heritage register. The home was moved to a site adjacent to the YMCA on Franklin Street, where older photographs of the YMCA building show it, but it no longer exists.
A.B. Woodard photo, about 1875, courtesy State Capital Museum Collection, Washington State Historical Society, catalog C2008.5.47
Text © Deborah Ross and The Olympian 2019 and 2026
In an 1899 photo, Edgar McClarty stands outside his tent at Camp Albert G. Forse in Huntsville, Alabama. McClarty was one of many young men from Olympia who volunteered to serve in the Spanish-American War. He was twice wounded at the battle of San Juan Hill in Cuba, and later served as Quartermaster Sergeant in the Philippines. He was elected Thurston County sheriff in 1903.
1899 photo, courtesy State Capital Museum collection, Washington State Historical Society, catalog C2018.0.145
Text © Deborah Ross and The Olympian 2019
Looking Back’s theme for 2026 was Downtown by the Decades. In May 1984, the City of Olympia was honored to host the time trials for the first Women’s Olympic Marathon. The race began and ended on Evergreen Park Drive, above the future site of Marathon Park, later named in honor of the event, and passed through downtown, witnessed by huge crowds.
1984 photo, Olympian archives
The Olympia Reserve Fleet (also known as the Mothball Fleet) was stationed in Budd Inlet from the 1940s to the 1970s. In a 1964 exercise that would doubtless horrify today’s environmental regulators, the fleet deliberately set fire to an oil barge near the Port of Olympia to practice their firefighting skills.
Daily Olympian photo, 1964, State Capital Museum collection, Washington State Historical Society, catalog C1986.43.64.10.8.2.1
Text © Deborah Ross and The Olympian 2019
Looking Back’s theme for 2026 was Downtown by the Decades. In 1979, civic organizations and the City retained a national organization known as R/UDAT to come up with a vision for the revitalization of downtown Olympia. One recommendation was to make downtown streets more attractive and pedestrian-friendly. In 1981, Governor John Spellman cut the ribbon dedicating the “Fifth Avenue Demonstration Project,” which added pedestrian crossings, benches, and trees to the landscape.
Olympia Planning Commission archives, Washington State Archives
Looking Back’s theme for