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