Location: 426 Fourth Ave E
Olympia Lumber and Mercantile, about 1910, State Library Collection, Digital Archives |
Site today (2014) Photograph courtesy of Deb Ross |
At one time much of east Fourth Avenue was lined with wooden buildings like the Olympia Lumber and Mercantile building shown at above left. These gradually gave way to masonry structures so that the only wooden building left in this area is the Cunningham building nearby. A 1914 photograph, linked below, shows this building as the Cash Grocery Store. And a photograph of Fourth Avenue looking east after the 1959 train wreck at the Union Pacific depot shows the building much altered (see Historylink article here). A Daily Olympian article from November 23, 1962 covers its demolition; at that time, it was known as the Log Tavern. The site is now a parking lot.
Sanborn Insurance maps show that this building was in the process of being erected in 1891. It had storefronts on the ground floor, typically groceries and furniture stores, with lodgings above (called The Arlington Lodgings in a turn of the century Sanborn map). Note the three cheerful women sitting in the window in the photograph at above left. The building was across the street from the Olympia Opera House, and only a block away from the waterfront of the Swantown Slough.
Links to more information:
Digital Archives link to above photo
Washington State Historical Society, photograph by Esterly (enter the following catalog numbers in Collections Search box), 2010.149.38.1; Daily Olympian photo showing demolition C1986.43.62.11.23.3
Copyright © 2022 Deborah Ross