Looking Back’s theme for 2025 featured Thurston County area photographers, artists, and their subjects. Samuel Holmes is the earliest known photographer in Olympia. He created daguerrotypes, an early kind of photograph. He placed this advertisement in Olympia’s early newspaper, the Pioneer and Democrat, in 1854. To date, no confirmed photographs by Holmes have been located.
Pioneer and Democrat advertisement, May 1854
Text © Deborah Ross and The Olympian 2025