The Port of Olympia was the hub of commercial activity in Olympia’s earliest decades. By 1910, when this photograph was taken, it was in decline: even the Red Light District had moved elsewhere. The old Bettman store is at foreground left, with the New England Hotel to its right, now the site of the 222 shopping and dining complex.
Asahel Curtis photograph, 1910, courtesy Washington State Historical Society
Text © Deborah Ross and The Olympian 2018