Little Rock logging by Clark Kinsey – 3/16/2025

Looking Back’s theme for 2025 features Thurston County area photographers, artists, and their subjects. Clark Kinsey was one of three brothers who documented the logging and lumber industry in the late 19^th and early 20^th century. Although he was not from Thurston County, he and his family spent several seasons in Grays Harbor, Mason, and Thurston County. This photo is of the Little Rock (now Littlerock) Logging Company crew with their steam-driven “donkey engine.” Photograph selected and captioned by Deborah Ross on behalf of the Olympia Historical Society and Bigelow House Museum, https://olympiahistory.org.

Clark Kinsey photo, about 1915, downloaded from Wikimedia Commons

Ida B. Smith Studio – 4/27/25
Looking Back’s theme for 2025 features Thurston County area photographers, artists, and their subjects. Pictured here is the studio of photographer Ida B. Smith, who was active in the late 19th and early 20th century. The studio, shared with her sister, photographer Agnes Mitchel, was near the corner of Jefferson and 4th Avenue, next door…
April 27, 2025
Bus Station by Vibert Jeffers – 4/20/25
Looking Back’s theme for 2025 features Thurston County area photographers, artists, and their subjects. Vibert Jeffers was a prolific Olympia-based photographer, having inherited the business from his father and mother, Joseph and Opal Jeffers. This photograph of the North Coast (later Greyhound) bus depot in downtown Olympia was taken in 1937, soon after the depot…
April 23, 2025
Ida B. Smith self portrait – 4/14/25
Looking Back’s theme for 2025 features Thurston County area photographers, artists, and their subjects. Ida B. Smith, pictured here in a self-portrait, came to Olympia with her husband in about 1891. After her husband’s death, Ida took up professional photography, first with her sister Agnes Mitchel and then on her own. Photograph selected and captioned…
April 14, 2025