History of Olympia, Washington

The history of Olympia, Washington, includes long-term habitation by Native Americans, charting by a famous English explorer, settlement of the town in the 1840s, the controversial siting of a state college in the 1960s and the ongoing development of arts and culture from a variety of influences.

The abundant shellfish in the tideflats and the many salmon-spawning streams entering Puget Sound at this point made it a productive food-gathering area.

According to early settlers' accounts, natives called the present site of Olympia "Cheet Woot" or "Schictwoot", meaning "the place of the bear."

In 1833, the Hudson's Bay Company established Fort Nisqually, a trading post at Sequalitchew Creek near present-day DuPont, Washington.

The first known European to reside at the future site of Olympia was Thomas K Otchin, an English Hudson Bay Company employee who took up a claim in 1841 but abandoned it by 1842.

In a time when water travel was the easiest form of transportation, Olympia's location on the north end of the main route through the area made it a crossroads for regional trade.

Smith built his cabin and enclosed two acres for a garden and livestock near the current intersection of Capitol Way and Olympia Avenue.

In 1853 the town settled on the name Olympia, at the suggestion of local resident Isaac N. Ebey, due to its view of the Olympic Mountains to the northwest.

At the request of the Hudson's Bay Company, French Catholic missionaries established Mission St. Joseph of Newmarket and school in 1848 at Priest Point near the future townsite for the conversion of natives to Catholicism.

The city grew steadily until 1873, when the Northern Pacific Railroad building a line toward Puget Sound unexpectedly bypassed Olympia, choosing Tacoma as its west coast terminus.

Alarmed by the loss of the railroad, Olympia residents set to work building their own rail connection to the main line at Tenino.

Olympia also served as a shipping port for materials produced from the surrounding countryside, including sandstone, coal, and agricultural products.

Since the 1960s Olympia has lost much of its earlier waterfront industry, including lumber and plywood mills, shipbuilding, power pole manufacture and other concerns.

[8] Olympia hosts the state's largest annual Earth Day celebration, Procession of the Species, a community arts-based festival and parade.