The following article was found in the News-Graphic v. 1, no. 2 (Aug. 1, 1940), a short-lived Olympia weekly newspaper. The author's recollections tell us almost as much about Olympia's social and racial attitudes in 1940 as they do about the pioneer era:

Early Notes on Newspapers

In the midst of the crowded activities of the modern world, the average reader finds it refreshing to drop back to pioneer days and get a glimpse of the city before automobiles replaced horse-drawn vehicles.

Back in 1868 The Echo, "wedded and devoted primarily to the great temperance movement, fully enlisted in the word of education, elevation and happiness," was brought forth on the site of the building in which today's modern News-Graphic is published [stevenl note: 205 West 4th Ave.]

It was an eight page, four column paper, for which conscientious teetotlers paid three dollars a year-- and wrote furious and anonymous tirades against their thirstier brethren.

Mr. Abbott and Mr. Bagley, who got out the periodical in the clumsy and tedious manner of printing 72 years ago, would have doubted their own sobriety had they been able to witness last week the production of the first issue of News-Graphic.

But the town, like the press, was an awkward, gangling youngster in the pioneering days that closed the Civil War. Merchants still looked sharp from the trading center around Columbia street, out upon the placid harbor bulkhead against the tide along Fourth, for the menace of Indian war canoes. For all but the smallest remembered the terror-filled days of '55 and '56, when a stockade had been hastily thrown up the length of Fourth, reaching from bay to bay and terminating its west end at Columbia. Here, many of those later merchants had themselves been stationed, until their watch was relieved by the revenue cutter Joe Lane, which came to anchor with guns trained to swing on approaching Indians. She provided the garrisoned town cannon and ammunition it so greatly needed, for the old salute gun, hoisted to the second story of the blockhouse, was being loaded with lead bars, cut up in lieu of cannon balls. Although no battle was fought in Olympia, what with Joe Lane bristling defiantly within gunshot, and the strategy that led to admitting a few Indians within the fort to be shown the supply of ammunition and told how easy it would be to wipe them out with it, less precaution might have written a different history. As it was, impatient young John Miller Murphy, afterwards known over the northwest as the dean of journalists, regretted an Indian raid or two didn't close the school conducted by one A.W. Morse, in a little house on Columbia near the waterfront during those breathless days of tantalizing peace.

Church Service

A block to the south, fronting Columbia, stood a small cooper shop, where in 1854 the first Presbyterian church in the territory organized. Record has it "On the morning of November 12, a little company of people met for divine worship in the cooper shop of Mr. Wood. The Rev. G.F. Whitworth conducted the services, taking as his text 'For who hath despised the day of small things.' In the afternoon the congregation again assembled, and the church was organized with seven members: D.C. Beaty, Mary J. Thompson, Mrs. Sarah Thompson, Mrs. Mary E. Whitworth, Mr. and Mrs. Putnam Hays and R.L. Doyle."

The little church had outgrown its humble home and moved to larger quarters, and the advent of the disapproving temperance Echo had not yet come to exhort Olympia to forego the cup that cheers, when the first brewery north of the Columbia river was installed by Wood, in a building adjoining his coopershop. The Washington Standard of June 22, 1861, obviously wiped its mouth with the back of its hand, and sat back with satisfaction to report, "We had the pleasure of examining this new feature of our town this week. The lager from this beer is pronounced to be the best quality. We wish Mr. Wood success in his enterprise." As long as it operated, its "cream ale," first in the territory, was a famous beverage among pioneers.

Fire Engine Bought

In 1865, Olympic Hall, as it was known previous to the Good Templars' occupance, was the festive scene of another civic enterprise. Charles E. Williams, owner, and public spirited citizen, conceived the idea of conducting a series of benefit balls, to raise the $1000 needed to purchase the first mechanical fire fighting equipment ever brought to Olympia. With tickets selling for $10 each, the money to buy and ship the apparatus around the Horn was soon raised, and on arrival, the engine was housed in the hall. Columbia Engine Company No. 1 was formed-- named for that in brass letters on the engine's dome-- with Williams as chief.

By 1869 the name Olympic hall had been changed to Tacoma hall, and it continued to flourish as the gathering place of the great and near great. That year, the country was talking more about the dream of a Northern Pacific railroad linking west coast products with east coast markets, than about "Seward's Folly," laid in Uncle Sam's vaguely protesting arms a couple years back-- a prize Russian bundle the ambitious secretary of state had called Alaska. The territory was even preparing to welcome the Hon. William H. Seward that summer of '69, when, escorted by delighted citizens, he arrived at Olympia on the steamer Hunt, enroute north to inspect the promising acquisition. Given a fitting salute, and welcomed by the town's officials in their best silk hats, it was from the steps of the Tacoma hall Seward "predicted for our territory a destiny as great as that of any portion of our national domain. 'The Northern Pacific railroad is in the field,' he told the folks gathered to hear his words. 'The surveys of the route have been prosecuted for some time. This route will unite two of the most remarkable bodies of waters-- Lake Superior with no limit of iron and copper ores, and Puget Sound with hardly any limit to lumber and fisheries.'" An hour later, the party returned to board the Hunt for Victoria, "from whence Mr. Seward will proceed to Alaska by the steamer Active, specially chartered for the occasion."

Cultural Uplift

The last year of the 60's was an historical one for Olympia's cultural life, as well as another chapter in the history of the famous hall on the corner of Fourth and Columbia. Many a valued volume had followed a cherished rocker and hair trunk to the wistful heap of household goods left behind a trailside to lighten pioneer prairie-schooner loads, but it is tradition that, with a gallant salute to civilization far behind them, the Bible and Webster's dictionary managed, somehow, to survive the overland journey. True, Gov. Stevens, with an appropriation from Congress, had filled a Massachusetts sea chest or two with ponderous tomes fit for the first territorial library, and shipped them 'round the Horn to the little clutter of a capitol settlement. But it remained for a son of the sea to sense a humbler need for "a plain man's reading." So to Capt. D.B. Finch, owner and commander of the mail steamer plying between Olympia and Victoria, was given the privilege of widening the town's cultural horizon. The press of Jan. 9, 1869, reported "Probably the most generous private donation ever made in our territory was by Capt. Finch, of the Olympic building and lot to the Olympia lodge of Good Templars. The price was $2500. The only request made by Capt. Finch is that the lodge fit up a portion of the building and maintain therein a free reading room for the public."

First Swimming Hole

Just to the rear of the Good Templars hall, and well within shocking distance of the wooden Marshville draw bridge that begun midway in front of the hall's Fourth street side, young Olympia slithered nude and happy into the tide waters of Puget Sound; their elders more discreetly favoring the Olympia bath house, corner of Fourth and Columbia. "Hot and cold showers given at any reasonable hour day or night" persuaded many that cleanliness was next to godliness.

Old timers still recall when J.H. Munson sorted out mail to waiting patrons in the little postoffice near the corner and many remember when it was removed to the famous old hall.

In April, 1876, Rev. Dong Tong, opened a Chinese school in their district on Columbia, and a decade later, the entire Pacific coast was torn with agitation against the Chinese. The territory reached the climax of its anti-Oriental movement in the winter of '85 and '86, when bewildered yellow men were driven out of towns, riots and slayings frequent. Gov. Watson C. Squire, whose home during his term was in the famous Carlton hotel on Columbia between Third and Fourth, imposed martial law until President Cleveland ordered federal troops to relieve local militia.

The Carlton hotel was famed not only for being the "Governor's mansion" during Gov. Squire's term of office, but as a resort where gathered the political potentates, statesmen and near statesmen, of the time. Originally the site of one John Clark's home, the two-story building erected by him was leased to Newspaperman George Carlton, who abandoned the print shop to become a landlord, giving the place his name.