Howard Point

Location: East Bay Drive, across from Meyer-Riddle House
Diversity: African-Americans

Detail from Whitham and Page map, 1890, Washington State Archives

View of Howard Point from East Bay Drive (2021), photo by Deb Ross

As noted in our Pacific House page, Rebecca Howard was a successful restaurateur in the Port of Olympia. She and her husband Alexander purchased land from Calvin and Pamela Case Hale on the east side of Budd Inlet where they established a small farm. The land was known as Howard Point, and is so designated in the Whitham and Page map from 1890, detail above left. Over time the designation was forgotten, but historian Ed Echtle noticed the name on the map and established its connection with the Howard family. In 2018 he petitioned to have the Washington State Committee on Geographic Names to officially designate the point of land Howard Point. The petition was granted in 2019, one of the few placed in Washington State to be named after a Black family.

For more information follow these links:

Washington State Committee on Geographic Names, petition and decision