Looking Back’s theme for 2025 features 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. Image selected and captioned by Deborah Ross on behalf of the Olympia Historical Society and Bigelow House Museum, https://olympiahistory.org.
Pioneer and Democrat advertisement, May 1854