Looking Back’s theme for 2024 was Many Streams, celebrating our rich history. The Olympia Junk Company, located at the corner of Legion Way and Columbia, was founded in about 1906 by Jewish entrepreneur Morris Berkowitz, who is likely in this 1914 photograph. It was later purchased by Morris’s in-laws, the Bean family, and became Olympia Supply, still in business in a building slightly to the south of the original.
Esterly photograph, 1914, Courtesy State Capital Museum collection, Washington State Historical Society, catalog 2010.149.23.1
Text © Deborah Ross and The Olympian 2024