Location: 522 Capitol Way S
Local register; Downtown National Historic District; Women’s History
Main Street with Carroll House, 1876 (detail), courtesy of Washington State Historical Society |
Hibberd & Cole Building today (2014), photo by Deb Ross |
In the early years of Olympia’s settlement, residences and commercial buildings freely mingled downtown. Shown at above left is a view of Main Street (now Capitol Way), looking north from Sixth Avenue (now Legion Way). The house at the right of the image is Robert and Abigail Stuart’s (see Stuart Building), and to the left of it is the home of lawyer Patrick P. Carroll and his family. Two of his children, George and Othilia followed in his footsteps. Othilia Carroll was the first woman to graduate from the University of Maine School of Law, and the first female justice of the peace. She married jurist Walter Beals and later they lived in Westhillsyde in West Olympia.
With the growth of Olympia and the location of the State Capitol downtown, commercial buildings began to overtake residences in the downtown core. In a 1914 photograph by Robert Esterly, the site is the location of the Postal Telegraph building, a two-story clapboard building. It’s possible this was the same structure as the Carroll House. The building currently at the site of the Carroll home was erected in 1926, in a style congruent with much of downtown, with its clerestory windows, recessed openings, and fixed awnings. It has been the home to several businesses over the years, including the Hibberd & Cole Men’s Store, from which the building takes its name. The building is on the local register and in the Downtown National Historic District.
Links:
Olympia Downtown National Historic District
Olympia Heritage inventory (Hibberd & Cole Building)
Washington State Historical Society (enter catalog numbers in Collections Search box), C2013.18.85; 2010.149.8.1 (Postal Telegraph)
Copyright © 2022 Deborah Ross