Throughout 2021 the Olympian’s Looking Back feature portrayed events and people from the Sylvester’s Window cityscape project. After the construction of the magnificent Thurston County Courthouse, now the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, the town commons was beautified into a public park with winding pathways, bandstand, and fountain. In the year of the 1899 cityscape, Olympia celebrated the last year of the century with a bicycle parade through the park.
unknown photographer, 1895, courtesy State Capital Museum Collection, Washington State Historical Society, catalog C1951.284.11
Text © Deborah Ross and The Olympian 2021