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
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
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
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 2025 featured Thurston County area photographers, artists, and their subjects. Although photographer Joseph Buchtel is better known as a Portland, Oregon photographer, he had ties in Thurston County, partnering for a time with Olympia photographer Alonzo Bixby Woodard. He made several portraits of Olympia citizens, including this 1870s photograph of Lurana Ware Percival, wife of merchant “Captain” Samuel Wing Percival.
Joseph Buchtel portrait, 1870s, courtesy of Washington State Historical Society, catalog 2015.0.208
Text © Deborah Ross and The Olympian 2025
Looking Back’s theme for 2025 features Thurston County area photographers, artists, and their subjects. Michael O’Connor arrived in Olympia in 1884 and established a book and stationery store that he operated until his retirement in 1915. He also promoted Olympia through photography. He is shown here in a photograph by the Rogers Studio, taken shortly after statehood.
Rogers Studio, about 1890, courtesy State Capital Museum Collection, Washington State Historical Society, catalog C2017.0.133
Text © Deborah Ross and The Olympian 2025
Looking Back’s theme for 2025 featured Thurston County area photographers, artists, and their subjects. L. Wilson Clark was a very early photographer in Olympia. His studio was on Main Street (now Capitol Way); he photographed subjects in Thurston and Pierce counties. Pictured here is settler James Offut also spelled Offutt) with a bundle of hops (Offut Lake is named for this family).
L. Wilson Clark photo, 1860-1870, courtesy State Capital Museum Collection, Washington State Historical Society, catalog C1943.1008.1
Text © Deborah Ross and The Olympian 2025
Looking Back’s theme for 2025 featured Thurston County area photographers, artists, and their subjects. Merle Junk, a product of the Olympia school system, turned to photography early in his life. He was prolific and well-respected. He captured images of legislators, local events, and places, often for promotional purposes. This photograph from a family scrapbook was taken at the time of his marriage to Marjorie May Cook in 1923.
Photo Courtesy Rebecca Junk Sherrell
Text © Deborah Ross and The Olympian 2025
Looking Back’s theme for 2025 featured Thurston County area photographers, artists, and their subjects. Charles M. Moore arrived in Washington Territory with his family in 1877 and was a merchant in downtown Olympia, as well as an avid amateur photographer in his later years. Shown here is Moore’s aunt, Eliza Olney (sister of prominent suffragists Mary Olney Brown and Charlotte Emily Olney French and Moore’s mother Maria).
photo by Charles M. Moore, courtesy State Capital Museum Collection, Washington State Historical Society, catalog C1950.1301.19.2
Text © Deborah Ross and The Olympian 2025
Looking Back’s theme for 2025 featured Thurston County area photographers, artists, and their subjects. Charles M. Moore arrived in Washington Territory with his family in 1877 and was a merchant in downtown Olympia. When photographic technology became widely available to nonprofessionals in the late 19th century, Moore captured local people and places as an amateur “Kodaker.”
photo around 1900, courtesy State Capital Museum Collection, Washington State Historical Society, catalog C2018.0.78
Text © Deborah Ross and The Olympian 2025
Looking Back’s theme for 2025 features Thurston County area photographers, artists, and their subjects. Vibert Jeffers, pictured here in a cropped family photo, was the son of photographer Joseph Jeffers and Opal Jeffers. Vibert took over the business in 1930, a few years after Joseph was killed in a climbing accident. Vibert was responsible for many photographs of members of the legislature, local people, places, and events.
Jeffers studio photo (cropped), about 1915, courtesy State Capital Museum collection, Washington State Historical Society, catalog C2018.0.148
Text © Deborah Ross and The Olympian 2025
Looking Back’s theme for 2025 featured Thurston County area photographers, artists, and their subjects. Adelbert D. (A.D.) Rogers was a prolific Olympia-based photographer. His primary subjects were portraits, including this portrait of his daughter Edna, from around 1884.
A.D. Rogers Photo, about 1884, Courtesy State Capital Museum collection, Washington State Historical Society, catalog C1958.2.62
Text © Deborah Ross and The Olympian 2025
Looking Back’s theme for 2025 featured Thurston County area photographers, artists, and their subjects. Adelbert D. (A.D.) Rogers was a prolific Olympia-based photographer. His primary subjects were portraits, including this self-portrait from around 1890. Among many other subjects over the years, A.D. Rogers was commissioned to take the photographic portraits of nearly every member of the first state legislature, after statehood in 1889.
Rogers photograph, about 1890, courtesy State Capital Museum collection, Washingto State Historical Society, catalog C1961.1185.57
Text © Deborah Ross and The Olympian 2025
Looking Back’s theme for 2025 features Thurston County area photographers, artists, and their subjects. In about 1914, Tumwater-based photographer Robert Esterly undertook a project to capture images of businesses and their owners in downtown Olympia. Here teenaged manager John Percival is shown outside of the Percival Dock shipping complex at the Port of Olympia.
Esterly photograph, 1914, courtesy Washington State Historical Society, catalog 2010.149.17.2
Text © Deborah Ross and The Olympian 2025
Looking Back’s theme for 2025 featured Thurston County area photographers, artists, and their subjects. This photograph by Olympia photographer Alonzo Bixby Woodard is of James Tilton Pickett, the son of Confederate General George Pickett, and Sâkis Tiigang, a Haida woman. This photograph was taken when James was attending Union Academy in Olympia. James later attended art school and was a talented painter.
1877 photograph by A.B. Woodard, courtesy State Capital Museum Collection, Washington State Historical Society, catalog C1949.1265.36
Text © Deborah Ross and The Olympian 2025
Looking Back’s theme for 2024 was Many Streams, celebrating our rich and diverse history. In 1988 Olympia voters helped make history when they elected local community organizer Cora Pinson, pictured here, to the City Council. She was the first African American woman to hold such a position in Washington State. Pinson served on the Olympia City Council from 1987 to 1991.
Photo courtesy Thelma Jackson.
Text © Deborah Ross and The Olympia 2024
Looking Back’s theme for 2024 was Many Streams, celebrating our rich and diverse history Barbara O’Neill was a commanding presence in our area for many years. While operating a soul food restaurant on Fourth Avenue, she instituted a practice of providing free holiday meals for those in need. The tradition continued after her death, with the annual Barb’s Family and Friends program, led by her children and numerous volunteers and supporters.
Photo courtesy City of Olympia
Text © Deborah Ross and The Olympian 2024
Looking Back’s theme for 2024 was Many Streams, celebrating our rich and diverse history. Thomas Park, shown here, was born in Bermuda and a bricklayer by trade. He was a long-time family associate of early settlers Robert and Mary Louisa Frost and family. He is buried in the Frost family cemetery lot at the Masonic Memorial Park.
Unknown Photographer, late 1800s, Courtesy State Capital Museum collection, Washington State Historical Society, catalog C1950.3.77
Text © Deborah Ross and The Olympian 2024
