- Olympia — Thumbnail History (historylink.org)
The Olympia area was well established by 1853 thanks to the Hudson’s Bay Company’s nearby Fort Nisqually and Puget Sound Agriculture Company, the early U.S. settlement at Tumwater, and Catholic missionary activity. The discovery of coal and a good harbor boosted the pioneer economy and Olympia served as the terminus of the Cowlitz Trail, the northern extension of the Oregon Trail, where settlers could transfer from foot and wagons to canoes and ships and spread outward along the shores of Puget Sound. The town grew with its own economy as Washington grew as a state, in addition to serving as the seat of government from 1853 to the present time.
- Modern-day visitors to Olympia’s capitol campus are justly impressed by the main Legislative Building’s 287-foot-high dome and the equally broad-shouldered edifices that surround that central structure. Architecture critics have called the arrangement a watershed in American capitol construction. Yet building the Washington state capitol was in no way an easy task. Not only were there daunting costs and delays involved, but even upon its completion in 1928, critics derided it as a waste of tax dollars.