Olympia, Washington

“ But, being a capital city, Olympia is greatly influenced by shifting polit- ical winds and registers recurrent changes in tempo in the life of its population, as the legislature convenes or disperses or State administra- tions change. With the convening of the legislature, an air of hurry and bustle pervades the city. Legislators, their families, friends, and attendant lobbyists come and go; the hotels fill, and restaurants and shops do a thriving business; groups of people, generally engaged in political discussion, gather in lobbies, in capitol corridors, on the street ”

“ Since 1900, development of Olympia, as a city, has followed a steady and uneventful course, which remains fundamentally unaltered even by the shifting pattern of Olympia, the capital. The bulk of the population consists to an appreciable extent of those who have steady employment in civil service and other governmental agencies, but new industries, such as that of oyster culture, and the expansion of old industries, particularly in the field of lumber products, have con- tributed materially toward the general stability. ”

“ Another fact of real economic importance is that the city serves as a distributing center for freight shipped by inland waterways from down-Sou;id points to all southwest Washington. The Port of Olympia, an area of more than 700 square miles, co- extensive with Thurston County, serves a region highly productive in agricultural, mineral, and lumber resources. ”

“ Olympia has a college, a hundred-thousand-dollar hotel, electric lights, water-works, and street-railway service. The State- House is a wooden structure which, although in good repair, is no credit to the rich young State of Washington, to whom Congress has given one hundred and thirty-two thousand acres of land for public buildings. The State constitution does not locate all the public buildings at the capital, but distributes them among the several towns and cities. Vancouver, on the Columbia, has the State School for Defective Youth ”

“ Another stream, Percival's Creek, is capable of being made a waterpower almost equal to the Des Chutes, by cutting half a mile of ditching; the same drainage reclaiming twenty thousand acres of the best grass lands. A comparatively small expense would build a dock at Olympia, covering 1,800 acres, in which vessels could be kept afloat when the tide is out; and such a dock will no doubt be built before long, whether or not this city becomes—what, of course, it aspires to be—the terminus of the Northern Pacific Railroad. The population of Olympia is about thirteen hundred. ”

“ OLYMPIA to MARYS CORNER, 47.9 m., US 99 South of Olympia the highway, lined with service stations, taverns, lunch counters, tourist camps, and billboards, cuts through a prairie. Thickets of alder and willow grow in the low spots; on higher ground are evergreen firs, standing singly or in clumps. ”

“ Washington (340) , a NW. State of the American Union, twice the size of Ireland; lies N. of Oregon; is traversed by the Cascade Mountains, the highest 8138 ft., and has a rugged surface of hill and valley, but is a great wheat-growing and grazing territory, covered on the W. by forests of pine and cedar; Olympia is the capital. ”

“ The speckled trout is taken in every mountain stream, above the reach of tide-water.
We notice in Olympia how abundant are berries, both wild and cultivated—the blackberry season, in particular, being at its height. All manner of small fruits seem abundant, and flowers and vegetables "a drug in the market." New as the country is, people seem to live well, dress well, talk well; and are planning a new empire—and all without any great or exhausting effort. ”

“ Olympia was chosen as the temporary seat of government, and Governor Stevens at once set to work to extinguish the Indian titles to land and to survey a route for a railway, which was later to become the Northern Pacific. The Indians, alarmed by the rapid growth of the white population, attempted to destroy the scattered settlements and the wandering prospectors for gold, which had been discovered in eastern Washington in 1855. Between 1855 and 1859, after many sharp contests, the Indians were partially subdued. ”

“ The waters of Puget Sound reflect the low verdure covered hills protecting the city and extending out along the shores. The mountains are seen on every side. At the edge of city, on the north, is Priest Point Park, of 160 acres. The end of the Oregon trail is marked by a monument in Capitol Park in the heart of the city. Tumwater, a mile away, is the site of the first settlement on Puget Sound. In Olympia the first store was opened for business in the state. ”

“ Modern buildings predominate in the small compact business district, while residential areas represent an older architectural mode, quiet and attractive, with substantial homes, smooth lawns, and long colonnades of shade trees. The Pacific Highway bisects the city, giv-
ing a glimpse of practically every phase of activity and a panoramic view of the surrounding mountains and the harbor. Southernmost port on Puget Sound, Olympia is the center of an industrial area concen- trated along the water front, where the Deschutes River flows into Budd Inlet. ”

“ An official estimate places the amount of standing timber in that area at 500,000,000,000 feet, or a thousand years' supply, even at the enormous rate the timber is now being felled and sawed.
In the vicinity of Olympia, the capital of Washington, are a number of popular resorts for sportsmen and campers—beautiful lakes filled with voracious trout, and streams alive with the speckled mountain beauties. The forests abound in bear and deer, while grouse, pheasants, quail, and water-fowl afford fine sport to the hunter of small game. ”

“ The creation of Washington Territory in 1853 stimulated a renewal of settlement. In 1851, Antoine Plante had established a ferry a few miles above the falls, and in 1853 a man named Pelletier, with the permission of Chief Garry, settled on the Walker-Eells mission site. In the same year, Governor Stevens passed through the country on his way to Olympia and was apparently impressed by the grazing lands and by the agricultural pursuits of Chief Garry and his people. ”

“ Seattle had six, Port Townsend three, and the whole number for western Washington was about thirty. The whole number in eastern Washington was given at nineteen, seven of these being at Walla Walla, namely, the methodist, Cumberland presbyterian, episcopal, congregational, catholic, seventh-day adventists, and united brethren.
A school was opened in Olympia, Nov. 22, 1852, by A. W. Moore, first teacher and postmaster on Puget Sound after its settlement by American colonists. Moore died in 1875, aged 55 years, having always labored for the best interests of society. ”

“ St John's church of Olympia, com. 37; Trinity church of Seattle, com. 77; St Paul's church of Port Townsend, com. 21 ; St Paul's church of Walla Walla, com. 26; St Peter's chapel of old Tacoma, com. 11; St Luke's church of New Tacoma, com. 4; St Andrew's chapel of Kalama, congregation small; Upper Columbia mission, com. 17; other commuuicants 100.
The fourth denomination in Olympia to erect a house of worship to the same deity was the baptist society, which, although somewhat numerous, did not file articles of incorporation until the 15th of March, 1872. ”

“ Colby, not only during the life of the paper but afterwards in all her work.
Amid all these discouragements and without aid and at a constant financial loss, Mrs. Colby carried on her paper in a manner that was absolutely heroic. Unable to pay for printing she learned to set type, and often was at once editor and compositor, sometimes even running the press. For a time she had her own little outfit in the basement of her house in Washington, where she did everything from writing the editorials to folding and mailing with her own hands. ”

“ At this meeting arrangements were made for a memorial meeting to be held after congress should have convened and other friends returned to Washington. The meeting was held on the seventeenth of December at the lecture room of the Unitarian Church. There was a large attendance of the old friends of Mrs. Colby and members of the Federal Suffrage Association. Very beautiful tributes of affection and appreciation were given by representatives of the different societies to which she belonged and the churches with which she had co-operated during her stay in Washington. ”

“ Colby was always on the program when Miss Anthony was managing the meeting."
She assisted in organizing a state suffrage association and was for sixteen years its president. A Nebraska woman says in the History of Woman Suffrage: "As long as Mrs. Colby was a resident of Nebraska she stood at the head of every phase of the movement to obtain equal rights for women." Not the least important work of her years in Nebraska was the founding of the Woman's Tribune in 1883 which she continued to publish there until her removal to Washington in 1888. ”

“ No such perfect piece of marble had ever been found before. There was not a scratch. The skin still glowed with the polishing that Praxiteles' own hands had given it. There was even a hint of color on the lips. The soft clay bed had saved the falling statue. Here was a statue that the whole world would love. It would make the name of Olympia famous again. The excavators were proud and happy. That old ruined temple seemed indeed a sacred place to them as they gazed upon perhaps the most beautiful statue in the world.
"Surely we shall find nothing else so perfect," they said. ”

“ Inside it shone a few buildings and a thousand statues. Along one side stretched a row of little marble treasure houses. At the far corner lay the stadion with its rows of stone seats. Nearer and outside the wall was the gymnasium. Even from a distance Charmides could see men running about in the court.
"There are the athletes!" he thought. "Creon is with them."
Behind all these buildings rose a great hill, dark green with trees. Down from the hill poured a little stream. It met a wide river that wound far through the valley. In the angle of these rivers lay Olympia. ”

“ Nevertheless it is strange, that many of us think much the same about Olympia. To us—pray do not take it ill, brother,—she appears singularly stiff and soulless. Her shape is symmetrical—so is her face—that is true! She might pass for beautiful, if her glance were not so utterly without a ray of life—without the power of seeing. Her pace is strangely measured, every movement seems to depend on some wound-up clockwork. ”

“ At Olympia itself the new green of the trees and grass, the pink of the almond blossoms on the banks of the Alpheus, and all the awakening of the early spring help to dissipate the melancholy that is wont to invade the mind in a lonely site amidst ruins which record some by-gone efflorescence of human activity. This Olympian plain, through which the Alpheus sweeps down to the sea between fields and vineyards, offered ample room for the vast throngs of visitors. There was no city accommodation. They must encamp in the open as they do to-day at many a modern festival. ”

“ Creon was led home wearing Zeus' wreath upon his head, and Charmides with Apollo's crown in his heart. [Illustration: A Coin of Alexander the Great. It shows Zeus sitting on his throne.]
HOW A CITY WAS LOST
Such was Olympia long ago. Every four years such games took place. Then the plain was crowded and busy and gay. Year after year new statues were set up, new gifts were brought, new buildings were made. Olympia was one of the richest places in the world. Its fame flew to every land. At every festival new people came to see its beauties. It was the meeting place of the world. ”

“ Olympia sat lonely and deserted by her river banks. Summer winds whirled dust under her porches. Rabbits made burrows in Zeus' altar. Doors rusted off their hinges. Foxes made their dens in Hera's temple. Men came now and then to melt up a bronze statue for swords or to haul away the stones of her temples for building. The Alpheios kept eating away its banks and cutting under statues and monuments. Many a beautiful thing crumbled and fell into the river and was rolled on down to the sea. Men sometimes found a bronze helmet or a marble head in the bed of the stream. ”

“ Nature has taken Olympia into her loving arms. She has shed her pine-needles and her leaves of the golden autumn upon the seats where the wrestlers reposed. She has set her grasses and flowers among the stones of the Temple of Zeus. Her vines creep down to the edge of that cup of her earth which holds gently, as a nurse holds a sleeping child, palaces, temples, altars, shrines of the gods and ways for the chariots. All the glory of men has departed, but something remains which is better than glory—peace, loveliness, a pervading promise of lasting things beyond. ”

“ Thirty or more there were—Apollo, Zeus, heroes, women, centaurs, horses. Arms were gone, heads were broken, legs were lost. The excavators fitted together all the pieces and set the mended statues up side by side as they had been in the gable. They found, too, the carved marble slabs that showed the labors of Herakles. But even these were not the lovely things that people had hoped to see from Olympia. They were rather stiff and ungraceful. They had not been made by the greatest artists. In the temple of Hera one day men were digging in clay. Over all the rest of Olympia was only sand. ”

“ For sixty miles or more east and west across the Olympian Peninsula, which is the forested northwestern corner of Washington and the United States between Puget Sound and the Pacific Ocean, stretch the Olympian Mountains. The country is a rugged wilderness of tumbled ranges, grown with magnificent forests above which rise snowy and glaciered summits. Its climax is Mount Olympus, eight thousand one hundred feet in altitude, rising about twenty-five miles equidistant from the Strait of Juan de Fuca upon the north and the Pacific Ocean upon the west. ”