Looking Back’s theme for 2026 was Downtown by the Decades. The Olympia Oyster Company building (now the Olympia Oyster House restaurant at 320 4th Avenue W) was designed in 1924 by architect Joseph Wohleb as a packing and storage facility for the Olympia Oyster Company. This is the only remaining building from Olympia’s oyster industry in downtown Olympia.
Jeffers studio photograph, 1924, Courtesy State Capital Museum collection, Washington State Historical Society, catalog C1950.8.11
Text © Deborah Ross and The Olympian 2026