This essay is photo heavy, so pardon the bandwidth. Most photos link to hi-res versions.

The photos have been pulled from various online sources and the “now” pictures are from Google Maps Street View and Google Earth.

Thanks to http://www.jonesphotocollection.com/, http://www.digitalarchives.wa.gov/, and http://olympiahistory.org/

I have tried by best to find the current locations, but I may be wrong in a few instances.

1. Olympia in 1894.

I had this photo labelled 1848 but I am pretty sure that is wrong based on the inscription.

It is not easy to tell, but you can see how much the shoreline has grown.

Now:

2. Olympia in 1948

I believe this photo was taken with the next few that follow it. You can see Little Hollywood and I am pretty sure that is the Oyster House

Now:

3. Olympia in 1948 (I believe)

Shot looking the other direction

Now:

4. Olympia in 1948 (I believe)

This one is nice because you can see massive difference in the road system and Capital Campus.

Now:

5. Looking east from the Kneeland Building

The Kneeland Building was torn down sometime in the 50s, iirc, but this photo was taken from the roof.

Now:

6. Washington Veneer

This one I had to guess on, because so much of it is gone and the land has been changed around, regardless, this was down on the waterfront:

Now:

7. Chambers Block

Now:

8. The Kneeland Building

It has a cool history and I almost wrote a blog post about it alone, but figured that no one else romances long torn town buildings as much as I so I skipped it.

Now:

9. Bolster & Barnes

Now:

10. Columbia Hall

The original city hall, fire department, police headquarters, etc. After they tore it down they named the new building Columbia after it.

Now:

11. The Funeral Home

Now: (2011 street view)

12. GP Plywood

State of the art and cool looking:

Now:

13. Knox Building / Washington High

This building is hard to find old photos of.

Now:

14. Memorial Clinic

This one is my personal favorite, and if I were an evil scientist I would move out of the volcano and restore this old place.

Now:

15. Safeway

I have heard this was the “sketchy safeway”. Now it is a “sketchy city hall”.

Now:

16. YMCA

This one is cool because the addition obviated the original doors.

Now:

17. The Rex Theater

You probably got a tattoo or a hair cut here. Some lucky few get to live up stairs:

Now:

– And now for some street scenes! –

18. 4th Ave looking east

Now:

19. Capitol Way



Now:

20. The Spar

Pretty cool that little has changed to some buildings.

Now:

21. That time a train crashed onto 4th.

This happened once. You can just barely make out the Security Building in the background.

Now:

22. Maple Park

This one has shifted around strangely so it is hard to pin down the exact spot the photo was taken.

Now:

23. Little Hollywood

This one just blows my mind:

Now:

24. Simmons Road

Before I-5 was built directly on top of Tumwater, it looked like this. Seems like the photo is from the roof of the old brewery. The “now” is my best approximation.

Now:

25. Constructing I-5

I am pretty sure I have this one place right, based on the two water towers and the large hills on either side of the freeway.

Now:

thanks for reading!