Looking Back’s theme for 2026 was Downtown by the Decades. Edmund Sylvester, founder of Olympia, and his wife Clara Pottle Sylvester, had an imposing Italianate mansion built in the mid-1800s. It was located one block south of what is now Sylvester Park, on Main Street, now Capitol Way.
unidentified photographer, 1860s, courtesy State Capital Museum collection, Washington State Historical Society, catalog C2009.0.1044
Text © Deborah Ross and The Olympian 2026