Category: Olympia history (Page 1 of 9)

From Wheelmen to Highways to Bike Lanes: Olympia’s 130-Year Loop

November 29, 2025 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

On more than one muddy Saturday in the 1890s, groups of Tacoma bicyclists pedaled south toward Olympia, only to turn back in frustration. The road between Nisqually and the capital was a slog, a stretch so notorious that “weekend wheelmen” abandoned their plans rather than push their gleaming new safety bicycles through miles of muck.

For decades, Olympia had already endured the political humiliation of defending its status as the state capital against the ambition of cities Tacoma. So to have Tacoma cyclists literally turn up their noses at the condition of the road to Olympia? For men like Dr. P.H. Carlyon, that was simply too much. If the state capital was going to command respect, it needed passable routes. If the county wasn’t going to build them, Olympia’s elite would do it themselves.

Thus began the first organized effort to construct bicycle paths in Thurston County.

The Bicycle Craze Reaches Olympia

The 1890s bicycle boom wasn’t unique to this region; it was a national mania. The safety bicycle, with two equal wheels, a chain, and pneumatic tires, transformed cycling into a middle-class pastime. By 1897 the U.S. was producing up to two million bicycles a year; by 1900, as many as five million Americans owned one.

As crazes sometimes take a while longer to reach us, Olympia’s residents were still no exception. While the nationwide fascination of bikes crested in 1896, in 1897 we formed the Olympia Bicycle Path Association, which grew into the Thurston County Bicycle Path Association by 1899. The membership rolls read like the social directory of the era: physicians, businessmen, former territorial officials. This was not a club of hobbyists, it was a political organization capable of getting things done.

Building the First Bike Network

The Association’s work didn’t focus primarily on city streets. Olympia’s dirt roads were rough but rideable. Most of their work was on the countryside. The challenge wasn’t commuting; it was leisure. Riders wanted smooth, scenic routes to Woodland (now Lacey), to South Bay, to Tumwater, to Little Rock, and even toward Nisqually, where a connection to Tacoma awaited.

Several projects stand out:

Franklin Street Path (1899): Construction began in May and marked one of the first formal, graded bike facilities in Olympia.
Little Rock Path (1899): Completed by July and praised as a “splendid path,” it demonstrated the Association’s ability to finish large, coordinated works.
Olympia–Tumwater Route: Following Cleveland Avenue to Custer, this corridor provided one of the most useful regional connections.
Olympia–Nisqually Path: A bold link aimed at stitching Thurston County into the broader Puget Sound biking network.

In a sense, these paths were the 1890s equivalent of mountain bike trails or ski slopes, recreational amenities more than transportation necessities. Their funding and maintenance depended entirely on public enthusiasm to pay a fee toward the path association. So when the bicycle craze collapsed around the turn of the century, the paths faded too. By 1901, the association was effectively defunct.

But for former association president P.H. Carlyon, his few years of advocating for bike path construction set him up for his career defining task.

Carlyon’s Next Act: From Wheelmen to Earthmovers

Dr. P.H. Carlyon had been the president of the Bicycle Path Association in 1898. Just over a decade later, he would become mayor of Olympia. And from 1910–1911, he oversaw one of the largest landscape transformations in city history: the Carlyon Fill, which used more than two million cubic yards of dredged material to reshape what is now downtown Olympia.

In 1913, Carlyon was elected to the state legislature, where he became one of the driving forces behind Washington’s early highway system. Long before the interstate system, Washington built an ambitious network of paved highways connecting cities, routes like Martin Way and Capitol Boulevard that we now take for granted.

It was Carlyon, the former bicycle-path enthusiast, who championed the funding, engineering, and political will for this transformation.

The irony is almost too perfect: the man who once built bike paths so Tacoma riders wouldn’t mock Olympia eventually built the paved roads that would help bicycles vanish from everyday use.

Why the Early Highways Stuck—and the Bike Paths Didn’t

The bicycle paths of the 1890s died because they were built for fun. Highways, on the other hand, were built for commerce, growth, and a modern identity. People had traveled between cities by boat or train. Paved highways were a radical new form of freedom and a new type of economic infrastructure.

Once the state invested in roads, every subsequent decision reinforced the automobile’s dominance. Land was platted for cars. Businesses oriented their entrances around them. Neighborhoods sprawled out to follow them. By the mid-20th century, the original bicycle network was not just forgotten, it was unimaginable.

Today, we can’t picture tearing up paved streets and going back to gravel. The world Carlyon helped build is so complete, so normalized, that even questioning it feels disruptive.

Now, more than a century later, Olympia is again working to expand bike infrastructure. But today’s bike lanes aren’t recreational corridors stretching into the countryside. They’re transportation, intended to help people move within the city, through the very corridors Carlyon and his peers carved out for cars.

Why Is Eastside Street Like This? A Small History of Olympia’s Streets

October 19, 2025 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

Ever wonder why some streets in Olympia seem to stop for no reason, why vacant lots sit untouched, or why a neighborhood feels like it’s divided by invisible walls? These quirks aren’t random, they’re history frozen in asphalt and parcel lines. Take Eastside Street: a road that almost, but never quite, connects southeast and northeast Olympia. Its story is a window into the city’s past, when rapid development, economic booms, and hurried platting shaped the streets we navigate today.

Inspired by Daniel Garcia’s essay, What Do You Think Olympia Should Look Like?, I’ve been thinking a lot about the questions he raises:

Why did that restaurant close? What is that smell? Why hasn’t anything been built on that vacant lot? Why isn’t downtown more bikeable? Why do so many places close by 8 p.m.? Why was the Artesian Well abandoned?

These are questions that local media might usually tackle. But as we’ve seen, between The Olympian and the JOLT, so many of these questions go unanswered. For me, there are tons of them.

I also want to note Daniel’s massive assistance in taking on hosting duties for the city council races this year on the Olympia Standard podcast.

Why isn’t Eastside the main street on… the Eastside?

One of my longest-standing questions has been: Why doesn’t Eastside Street connect the neighborhoods north of the 4th and State corridor with those to the north?

Eastside effectively ends at State Avenue (even though it technically continues north for another block). Puget Street picks up the role of main drive through the northeast neighborhood, a block east of where Eastside stops. So if you want to go from southeast Olympia to northeast Olympia (or vice versa) you have to dogleg down either 4th or State to get from one quarter of the city to another.

It seems like Eastside could have continued north at some point. But it doesn’t. So why not? The answer lies in the plats that make up Eastside along the corridor.

Eastside Street first appears as part of Swan’s Addition to Olympia in 1871, a significant part of the city that lay east of the Swantown Slough, which partially cut off this side of town from downtown Olympia.

As Washington transitioned from territory to full-fledged statehood in 1889–1890, there was a massive surge in development, anticipating population growth and economic benefits of statehood. This boom lasted until the economic crash of 1893. We can trace this history in the explosion of plats filed with the Auditor’s Office between 1889 and 1891.

This is where the heart of the stunted Eastside Street lies. In early 1889, still months before statehood, the Van Epps and Wiman plat cut off the corridor that Eastside Street in Swan’s plat would have used to connect neighborhoods. Quince Street was recognized in this plat, but Eastside was not.

Months later, the Terrace plat recognized Eastside again — but only partially. An oddly oversized parcel on the south side of this plat (now the site of an apartment complex) disrupted continuity.

Then, just a few weeks later, the College Heights plat north of Terrace included an Eastside Street, but slightly off-center from Terrace’s. , So, even if Eastside had connected through Van Epps and Terrace, it would include the strangely inconvenient dogleg. I suspect this was a result of the rapid pace of development in the year following statehood: planners simply didn’t coordinate across plats.

It is also worth noting that, Swan’s Addition in 1871 also didn’t connect directly to Van Epps; it ended at the current Legion Way. It wasn’t until the McLenndan (1905) and Pattison (1901) plats were laid out that Eastside finally met Van Epps.

This detail of an 1890 map of Olympia during the post statehood boom gives you the proper context of the Eastside route and the land it. Lying right in the middle is Van Epps.

Addressing the possible punch through?

But what if nothing had ever been built where Eastside terminated at Van Epps? Why didn’t later planners just punch a road through to Terrace?

Looking at the current parcel map, it seems like there’s an opportunity to “punch through” Eastside. The current house at 1032 Olympia Ave NE, was built in 1940, might give the impression that we had decades to finish the street. But that home replaced an earlier one, meaning the corridor was never fully clear. The most convincing evidence is from Brian Hovis’ presentation of the Sanborn maps at OlympiaHistory.org. There you see a residential house on the 1908 map.

Lessons from Eastside Street

So what do we take from the story of Eastside, in a “why is Olympia the way it is” point of view?

People weren’t paying attention in the pivotal year of 1890. While Eastside shows up in some plats, it doesn’t appear in all, making continuous construction impossible.

Rapid development and platting ignored overall city planning, in this case. What might seem like an odd street today is the product of historical accidents, economic cycles, and fragmented decision-making. Many of the plats you see before the invention of car-centered, cul-de-sac development took into consideration the square block alignment of the city, to ensure an orderly development of the city. But this time it didn’t.

Civic apologies and understanding you have a problem

October 11, 2025 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

Move your feet

When you’re playing defense in soccer and find yourself reaching to poke the ball away from an attacker, it’s a good sign you’re standing in the wrong spot. It’s time to move your feet.

A few years back, I was reminded of the three parts of a good apology because of the falling down the stairs act Lakefair was performing.

It basically goes like this:

Acknowledge and express your feelings: State what you did and how you feel about it. Go beyond a simple “I’m sorry” to show that you’re truly sorry, horrified, or disappointed in yourself.

Validate the harm you caused: Name the damage and explain how you understand it affected the other person. This shows you were listening and gives them a chance to correct your understanding. Don’t police their reaction.

Offer a plan for change: Explain how you’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again with real, concrete steps. Instead of saying, “It won’t happen again,” say what you’ll do differently next time.

The Capital Lakefair organization was stuck at Step 1 of a true apology because their public defenses focused on rules and blame-shifting, not on acknowledging the public’s pain or anger.

For this situation to turn around, the leadership needed first to listen, not just to those who were “yelling,” but to the broader perspectives around them. They needed to realize this was about what they did, not how they were being talked about. To quote Aaron Sorkin in The Newsroom, they had a PR problem because they had a real problem.

As predicted by the “Markets are Conversations” principle, public outrage demands a two-way dialogue. If everyone is yelling, the organization is in the wrong place in that conversation and needs to move its stance (and its actions) to move forward.

I was reminded again of these principles when I read “The Ritual of Civic Apology.”

It’s a great read. In short, Beth Lew-Williams explores the recent trend of Western U.S. cities offering belated formal apologies for the historical expulsion and mistreatment of their Chinese residents. She questions the sincerity, effectiveness, and intended audience of these gestures. After visiting Tacoma and a couple of California cities, she concludes that these civic apologies don’t reach full reconciliation. Whatever wound was left hasn’t been healed by performative apologies. Most barely make it past Step 1 (acknowledging the wrongdoing) without fully naming the harm or committing to real repair.

And what are reparations, if not repair work?

That’s why I’m glad the City of Olympia is studying reparations. I sat down with Mayor Dontae Payne recently to talk about the work Olympia is exploring. One of the things we discussed was the basis of Washington’s Covenant Homeownership Program.

Washington State, like many places, used racially restrictive covenants to exclude nonwhite residents from certain neighborhoods well into the 1960s. Even after they were ruled unenforceable in the late 1940s, new covenants were still being filed in Thurston County right up until open housing laws were passed following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. According to the University of Washington, covenants in Thurston County featured harsher-than-normal language, seemingly to make a point.

The Washington Covenant Homeownership Program was created to help repair the damage caused by decades of racist housing policies like restrictive covenants. It helps first-time homebuyers from communities historically shut out of homeownership by offering zero-interest loans for down payments and closing costs. To qualify, buyers must have moderate incomes and be descendants of people who lived in Washington before 1968 and were harmed by those racist housing rules.

Unsurprisingly, a lawsuit was filed to overturn the program by a conservative organization arguing that it’s discriminatory because it limits eligibility by race, calling it “using racism to fix racism.”

And this is where the ritual of civic apology meets the real world of government finance, legal interpretation, and political will. The harm caused by restrictive covenants (and by zoning choices, biased policing, and other forms of institutional racism) continues to ripple outward. Acknowledging the harm is only the first step. We still struggle to unpack and address the deep, systemic causes.

We always have to be ready to move our feet. Because even as Lew-Williams rightly wonders who these civic apologies are really for, it’s clear to me who should be doing the Sisyphean work of building complete ones. It’s us, those of us here now, who benefited from decades of racist systems.

A framework for approaching racial reparations here should begin with the commitment to give people what they are due and to repair harm done to the broader human community. Justice, rightly understood, is not about assigning guilt to individuals but about restoring balance where it has been lost. The frame for us should be, when one part of the community suffers, the whole is diminished. Addressing historical wrongs, then, is not an act of division but of maintenance.

Sound policy must be grounded in reason and clear-eyed understanding. This is why the work Lew-Williams describes is important, but incomplete. Repairing deep, generational harm isn’t about emotional performance or political convenience. It needs patient study, honesty about causes, and deliberate, thoughtful action. The goal is to act rightly moving forward. To understand we’re in the wrong spot and move our feet.

Smith Troy, Trump and Telling the Truth

October 4, 2025 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

We’ve all heard President Donald Trump call the press “the enemy of the people.” Over the course of his terms, he repeatedly attacked news organizations as “fake,” “corrupt,” and even suggested some were engaged in illegal activity.

Beyond insults, he openly questioned the constitutional protections that shield journalists, including the landmark New York Times v. Sullivan precedent, and proposed “opening up our libel laws” so politicians could sue and “win lots of money.”

His rhetoric and actions exemplify a long-standing tension in American democracy: the fragile balance between government power and press freedom. Yet this struggle is far from new, and it is not new here at home. Nearly a century ago, in Thurston County, local politics intersected with criminal libel laws in a way that foreshadows today’s conflicts.

The story begins in November 1938, when Thurston County Prosecuting Attorney Smith Troy filed criminal charges against three men: Ray Gruhlke, Lester Main, and George Johnson. He accused the defendants of distributing handbills that allegedly defamed Troy and his brother Harold, who was an assistant county prosecutor. The charges contended that the statements were malicious and intended to expose the Troys to “hatred, contempt, ridicule, and obloquy,” depriving them of public confidence, consistent with the criminal libel statutes of the time.

Almost immediately, questions arose about the integrity and motives of the public officials involved. The circumstances of the arrests suggested potential overreach, and critics argued that the case may have been politically motivated to protect the interests of Smith Troy while undermining his opponents. Affidavits from law enforcement contained conflicting accounts of the arrests, raising doubts about the accuracy and impartiality of the official record. The court initially denied motions to appoint independent attorneys to investigate the charges, further highlighting the potential for bias. The case only began to take a more credible direction once a Special Deputy Prosecuting Attorney, Harry Ellsworth Foster, was appointed to replace Smith Troy, whose personal involvement as the alleged victim created an obvious conflict of interest.

Over the next several months, the Special Prosecutor’s investigation revealed that the alleged libel stemmed largely from confusion over incomplete court records. The handbills pointed to cases that the Troys were apparently prosecuting improperly, but the cases referenced in the pamphlets had been transferred, and the inconsistencies were clerical rather than malicious.

The defendants admitted their errors, tendered apologies, and Troy accepted them. By May 27, 1939, the court dismissed the case, noting that the controversy had prompted reforms to ensure future records were clearer and less prone to misinterpretation.

The Thurston County case cannot be fully understood without situating it within the broader legal context. Smith Troy would not have been able to pursue charges without statutes defining libel broadly as any malicious publication exposing living or deceased persons to hatred or contempt, or injuring any person in business or occupation. A person could be prosecuted even if the statements were true, unless published with “good motives” and “for justifiable ends.”

By the 1930s, criminal libel prosecutions had become rare, yet the statutes remained on the books through 2009, offering public officials like Troy a tool—however rarely used, to protect reputations through criminal law.

The law’s overreach and constitutional vulnerabilities became clear in 2008, when the Washington Court of Appeals struck down the criminal libel statute as facially unconstitutional. The court held that it violated the First Amendment because it punished false statements without requiring proof of actual malice and, paradoxically, could punish true statements lacking “good motives.” The legislature formally repealed the law in 2009. Modern statutes surrounding protection orders have partially revived criminalized libel in limited circumstances, primarily to address harassment and repeated false statements made with malice.

The Smith Troy case illustrates how criminal libel statutes historically empowered officials to suppress criticism, a temptation not lost on modern politicians. Trump’s attacks on the press echo the same impulse: using legal threats, regulatory power, and public shaming to undermine journalists and chill reporting. Unlike Thurston County in 1938, Trump operates on a national stage, with the ability to influence federal agencies, control access to government events, and challenge the judiciary’s interpretation of defamation law.

Yet the comparison also highlights both the fragility and resilience of press freedom. In Thurston County, the appointment of an unbiased Special Prosecutor and the eventual dismissal showed that legal checks, due process, and transparency can constrain abuses of power. Today, protections like New York Times v. Sullivan perform a similar role, ensuring that even powerful political actors cannot easily weaponize libel law against the press. Without these safeguards, the line between legitimate critique and suppression of dissent blurs, leaving citizens less informed and democracy weaker.

The trajectory from Smith Troy to Trump underscores that the press is both a target and a guardian in any democracy. Laws may criminalize speech, but misuse or selective enforcement erodes trust in both institutions and government itself. Meanwhile, as local news declines and national outlets consolidate, the onus falls more heavily on government to act transparently. A free press alone cannot ensure accountability; officials must make accurate information accessible, clear, and timely, or risk leaving the public in the dark.

History reminds us that power will always test the boundaries of scrutiny. The Thurston County libel case offers a microcosmic lesson: fair process, independent oversight, and transparent government are essential to maintaining the balance between authority and the public’s right to know. Today, as political leaders attack media and propose changes to defamation law, the stakes have moved from local to national. The core principle remains unchanged: the press must remain free to speak, investigate, and hold power accountable, and government must meet its own obligation to be transparent in a media environment that can no longer do it alone.

The City of Puget and how we build cities

August 30, 2025 / Emmett O'Connell / 1 Comment

There’s something about a neighboring city moving into nearby unincorporated neighborhoods that always gets people excited and wanting a city of their own. At least around here.

That’s exactly what happened in the 1960s when Lacey became a city.

The Birth of Lacey: A Rivalry with Olympia

Lacey’s path to cityhood was shaped by a rivalry with Olympia over annexation and control of fast-growing suburbs.

After World War II, Lacey shifted from farmland to a booming suburb, helped by projects like South Sound Mall. By the early 1960s, Olympia began pushing east, annexing land along Martin Way and Pacific Avenue up to Lilly Road. This sparked a “border war” as Lacey moved to incorporate and protect its own boundaries.

Lacey’s first incorporation vote in 1964 failed, but a second vote in November 1966 narrowly passed by about 200 votes. Almost immediately, conflict reignited. Residents of Lacey’s western “Olympia fringe area,” who had opposed incorporation, voted to leave and join Olympia in early 1967. Lacey sued to block the move, but courts upheld Olympia’s annexation under an old 1890 law (later changed in 1969).

That same year, voters in both cities considered merging into one. Supporters said it would cut costs, improve planning, and solve Lacey’s sewage problems by tapping Olympia’s system. The proposal failed, badly in Lacey, where residents strongly opposed merging.

The 1980s: Lacey Looks North to Puget

In the ’70s and ’80s, Lacey tried to annex eastward but hit resistance from established neighborhoods like Tanglewilde and Thompson Place. Much like Lacey in the ’60s, these neighborhoods didn’t want to join a bigger city, or form their own. They already had regional fire services, and Tanglewilde even formed its own park district, building the county’s only public pool.

So Lacey looked north, toward undeveloped land between those neighborhoods and Hawks Prairie.

During the 1980s, Lacey took an aggressive annexation strategy, focusing on big undeveloped areas with huge growth potential, like Hawks Prairie. This land promised billions in development and tens of thousands of jobs over two decades. Lacey wanted to bring in sewer, water, and other urban services while avoiding the political headaches of older neighborhoods.

At the same time, Lacey played defense. It annexed strategically to stop the proposed City of Puget, an effort by rural residents to block Lacey’s expansion. Just like Lacey vs. Olympia before it, the Lacey vs. Puget City battle took on the same tenor of trying to keep the neighboring big brother from taking over.

The proposed City of Puget was named after an unrealized metropolis on Johnson Point. Puget City was platted in 1870 (and promptly un-platted three years later) as a possible terminus for the railroad. There are actually a handful of homes that sit on “Puget City” parcels in the area, but obviously, the rail road city was never built. As Lacey started their march to the inland sea in the 1980s, rural residents staked their own claim and petitioned the boundary review board for the creation of the 3,000 person City of Puget.

The new city idea died after the Boundary Review Board voted it down 3-2. The board leaned on a rift between residents of the rural areas and developers and residents of larger planned neighborhoods that wanted Lacey’s services.

One big difference between the 1960s and the 1980s? The Boundary Review Board. Created in 1967, these boards added consistency to city formations and annexations. You can’t rewrite history with “what ifs,” but it’s interesting to imagine what Lacey’s future would’ve looked like if it had been blocked like Puget.

Ultimately, Lacey annexed thousands of acres, leapfrogging older neighborhoods to build new subdivisions and warehouses. Those skipped-over neighborhoods fought off annexation attempts for decades, and now, in 2025, Lacey is looking back at them again.

But first: How Cities Grow

This brings me back to my favorite academic paper I’ve read this year, The Neutral Criteria Myth. In a discussion about legislative redistricting, it points out that histories like Lacey’s show how city boundaries might look like simple lines on a map, but they are anything but neutral. These boundaries have long been used to shape communities, deciding who holds power and who gets resources.

Historically, these lines were often drawn with racial and economic bias. Redlining is a clear example, where minority neighborhoods were confined to underfunded areas. At the same time, wealthy, mostly white suburbs drew boundaries to separate themselves from urban centers, creating large gaps in wealth, schools, and public services. The truth is, there is no such thing as a neutral city boundary. These lines have always been about more than geography, they shape opportunity and segregation in ways that last for generations.

City lines affect property values, school funding, and even political representation. Local gerrymandering (redrawing district maps to favor one group) can tilt power and weaken others’ votes. Annexation decisions also play a role: cities often target areas that bring in tax revenue while avoiding neighborhoods that may be costly to serve.

This is exactly the situation Lacey faces today. Decades after growth management laws placed the old Tanglewilde and Thompson Place neighborhoods in Lacey’s Urban Growth Area, the city is now looking back at the areas it skipped over. They have studied what annexing these unincorporated neighborhoods would mean. Their new financial analysis offers a clear answer: annexation would likely cost more than it brings in, at least in the near term. The study examined three growth scenarios, and in every case, the city would face a financial hit. Even after 20 years, the costs of police, fire, and utilities outweigh the tax revenue these areas would generate.

So, annexations have biases towards the needs of the current city residents. Systems like boundary review boards can help short-circuit these biases and bring more rational decision-making, but I think there is a broader model.

One idea I’ve been thinking about is to take city boundary decisions out of the hands of cities themselves. Currently, cities often push annexations for more tax revenue or strategic growth. But what if an independent board handled it instead, similar to the commissions used for legislative redistricting?

This board wouldn’t have a stake in politics or money. Its sole goal would be ensuring that services, water, sewer, police, fire, are delivered efficiently. It would focus on creating logical city limits that make sense for residents and future growth, not just for city budgets. The concept is simple: draw boundaries based on what works best for communities.

In many places, higher levels of government already step in to manage city boundaries rather than leaving decisions to individual cities. They do this because it can bring major public benefits, better planning, stronger services, and less wasteful competition between municipalities. Sometimes this happens through state or provincial laws. Other times, independent boards (like Boundary Review Commissions in the U.S. or Municipal Demarcation Boards in South Africa) take the lead. Their role is to look at the bigger picture: how to manage growth, avoid urban sprawl, and ensure communities are connected logically.

Why does this matter? When cities compete over territory for tax dollars, services suffer and local governments end up fighting instead of cooperating. Provincial or national intervention can fix that. In Canada, provinces sometimes merge or reorganize municipalities so services align and resources are shared fairly. In South Africa, national boards bring diverse communities together under one system, promoting equity and social cohesion.

The goal is simple: instead of a patchwork of self-interested annexations, create a more thoughtful, planned approach to city boundaries, one that serves people.

We lost our neighborhoods, we lost our unions

August 16, 2025 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

Ironically, it was called the People’s Store.

People’s opened in spring 1966 to a large gala, just as the South Sound Center in what is now Lacey was welcoming its first tenants. Outside the Ernst store next door stood Dale Parsons, ruining the festive mood. He was a lone union picketer. He carried a sign pointing out that Ernst was non-union. The twist? Parsons wasn’t a union member himself, he had been hired by the Olympia Retail Union to advertise that Ernst hadn’t signed a contract.

The 1960s marked a turning point for Olympia’s retail unions, which had been part of the city’s commercial fabric since 1903. Historic places like The Spar, a gathering spot for workers since 1935, still stand as reminders of this legacy. But like many cities across America, Olympia’s labor movement has faced a long, slow squeeze driven by suburban sprawl. Since the end of World War II, outward growth has reshaped communities, economies, and, critically, unions.

By the late 1960s, the impact of suburbanization was already clear. The lone protester outside the new mall was a visual symbol of a shifting retail landscape. As businesses moved from downtown into suburban shopping centers, the local clerks’ union faced new challenges. A more dispersed workforce made organizing harder, eroding both membership and bargaining power.

The challenge became even more obvious two years later, during a 1968 retail strike in neighboring Grays Harbor. The new highway from Elma to West Olympia gave shoppers a simple way to bypass picket lines, by driving to Thurston County to do their shopping. That convenience undermined the strike and foreshadowed how suburbanization would continue to weaken union efforts.

The suburban boom wasn’t just about housing. It brought a new model of shopping. Downtown business districts gave way to malls in Lacey and, later, on Olympia’s Westside. Big-box stores like Kmart, Target, and Walmart (with their sprawling footprints, parking lots, and all-in-one convenience) pulled shoppers further from city centers and unionized workplaces.

For employers, this shift was no accident. Moving jobs out of dense urban cores allowed companies to tap into cheaper, less unionized labor markets. This geographic dispersion deliberately weakened what one scholar called the “natural solidarities of work and neighborhood,” long the foundation of urban unions. Union leaders themselves have noted that big-box development often displaces union jobs, and that union density falls the farther you get from the city’s core.

The obstacles weren’t only geographic; they were political. While private-sector union membership collapsed after the 1970s, automation and globalization weren’t the main drivers. The bigger factor was employer resistance. The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 had already weakened unions, and in the decades that followed, employers increasingly fought organizing efforts with tactics like threats of store closures and mandatory “captive audience” meetings. Courts often sided with management, making it harder for workers to organize and sustain unions.

Despite these national headwinds, Olympia’s main retail clerks’ union (now UFCW Local 367) has survived and adapted. Founded in 1934 as Retail Clerks Local 367, it now represents thousands of workers across Thurston, Pierce, and Grays Harbor counties.

A major milestone came in 1979, when the Retail Clerks International Union merged with the Amalgamated Meat Cutters to form the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) International Union. While UFCW 367 remained a distinct local, it has often joined with neighboring unions for major contract negotiations. In 2013, for example, coordinated bargaining across locals narrowly averted a grocery strike.

As cars reshaped our communities, we lost walkable, “people-oriented” spaces. At the same time, we lost people-oriented institutions: retail unions, which all but disappeared from the suburban landscape. On a recent episode of The Olympia Standard podcast, it seems very on point that we discussed how the drive-through model at Starbucks can feel dehumanizing and why unions remain essential in retail work.

Today, we’re rethinking our communities, emphasizing denser neighborhoods where services are closer to the people who need them. But as we rebuild our physical landscape, we also need to rebuild our labor landscape. Union density still matters. Wherever people work, they deserve a voice on the job.

Revisiting Magnet Theory, Migration, and the Myths We Tell Ourselves

July 26, 2025 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

Over the last two weeks, I’ve written about overlapping ideas:

Two weeks ago, I looked at the demographics of Olympia, Thurston County, and Washington State, and the impact of new migrants on the size and shape of our communities.

Then last week, I explored a concept known as *magnet theory,” and how it shows up in local conversations. A key example was a local candidate who claimed to have found a smoking gun: proof that the City of Olympia was using magnet theory to pad its budget. That claim turned out to be false, but it got me thinking about how we talk about new residents in our community.

First off, magnet theory seems to be having a revival as we head deeper into this municipal election year.

The Spokane Business Association (SBA) released a survey claiming that over 50% of Spokane’s unhoused population moved there after becoming homeless.

City data and national research contradict the SBA’s findings. Spokane’s 2024 Point-in-Time Count and longitudinal studies show that about 80% of unhoused people are from Spokane County.

It turns out the SBA’s poll was the kind of study that finds exactly what it sets out to prove. Experts argue it was methodologically flawed, misleading, and politically motivated. Designed by former Trump homelessness adviser Robert Marbut, the survey used biased questions, a small sample size, and questionable methods, like having volunteers identify homeless people by sight.

Critics, including local service providers and city officials, say the report dehumanizes unhoused people and promotes a divisive “us vs. them” narrative. Even some who agree with Marbut’s policy preferences dispute the report’s central claim.

Here in Thurston County, we’ve seen similar rhetoric. Former County Commissioner Gary Edwards was well-known for opposing funding for homelessness services unless it was tied to where someone came from.

But the data tell a different story. In our most recent Point-in-Time Count, only 8% of unhoused people reported coming from out of state. Nearly 80% said they became homeless in Thurston County or a neighboring county.

That stands in stark contrast to the broader population. According to the most recent American Community Survey, 42% of Thurston County residents were born in another state.

And that doesn’t even capture the regular churn of migration. Over the past 10 years, Thurston County has seen a net gain of over 32,000 people from in-migration, compared to only about 4,700 added through births. This pattern has held for decades. In fact, in the mid-1970s (when my own family first arrived) nearly 30,000 people moved to Thurston County in just four years. Most of my family has since moved away, but I returned in 1997. I’m technically part of the natural increase in 1976 and a new migrant in 1997.

All of this underscores a key point: When it comes to “borrowing problems” from elsewhere, we borrow far more from our housed residents than our unhoused neighbors.

The underlying assumption of magnet theory is that our own decisions haven’t contributed to the housing crisis or visible homelessness. That by offering shelter, services, or even just food, Olympia (and other cities) attract people who would otherwise be somewhere else.

But if you’re reading this blog, you probably don’t need a reminder that homelessness is a housing problem. Issues like addiction, crime, andb violence are more often results of how we treat people once they’ve become homeless, not causes of homelessness. We’ve seen that something as simple as not having to sleep outside can significantly improve personal health outcomes.

If, despite all the evidence, you still subscribe to magnet theory, ask yourself this: Do you question why people with a down payment move to Olympia or Washington State? Chances are, you moved here from somewhere else too.

The problem isn’t just the hypocrisy of someone who recently relocated complaining about others “bringing problems.” That hypocrisy is real, but it also ignores our region’s long history of trying to exclude.

A newcomer might be forgiven for not knowing that history. But Washington State and Olympia have seen:

Black exclusion laws
The forced removal of Chinese families
Laws barring people of certain ethnicities from owning property

These were all deliberate efforts to keep people out. Using today’s broken housing market to justify exclusion is just a continuation of that same legacy.

In the 1940s, we burned “Little Hollywood” to make way for Capitol Lake. During the Great Depression, we beat Hunger Marchers who came to Olympia seeking help from the governor.

We don’t need a new narrative to justify rejecting people who come here for help. We already have a long and troubling one.

But it doesn’t have to continue.

People will keep coming here, housed or unhoused, because that’s the country we live in. But it’s time for the magnet theory narrative to fade. And it’s time for us to heal.

Ending the Oregon Trail

June 14, 2025 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

One of my favorite aspects of Pacific Northwest history is the quiet debate about where the Oregon Trail “ended.” Like polite Cascadians, we tend to avoid direct confrontation on the issue, yet more than one city lays claim to the distinction.

Oregon City arguably has the strongest claim, if only because of its museum and the numerous related activities held there.

Olympia also presents a case, being further along the trail and boasting a monument. Over 100 years ago, the Daughters of the American Revolution placed markers along the trail in Washington State, ending in downtown Olymia. We even have a street that follows the old route from Tumwater north into the city, aptly named “Old Oregon Trail.”

Puyallup, home to the most prominent Oregon Trail marker promoter, offers a dark horse entry. Ezra Meeker did more than anyone else to promote the preservation of the trail’s memory. The marker outside his home in Puyallup signifies the starting point of his backward retracing of the Oregon Trail in 1906. Therefore, if he retraced his steps back east, his house could be considered the end.

However, this leads to a larger philosophical argument about trails and their true termination points. The Oregon Trail ended for each family and migrant who put down roots, often displacing the people who already lived here, and began reshaping the landscape to their will.

Technically speaking, the trail north of the Columbia River wasn’t the Oregon Trail, it was the Cowlitz Trail. The Daughters of the American Revolution probably knew this, but retained the “Oregon Trail” moniker to maintain attention on their project of placing markers from the Columbia River to Olympia. Who really needed to mark the end of the Cowlitz Trail when it was so much easier to make and place markers for the more famous Oregon Trail? Ultimately, the Oregon Trail ended wherever any family decided to end it for themselves.

This perspective considers only the dimensions of longitude and latitude.

In terms of time, the Oregon Trail effectively ended when railroads became the most economical way to colonize the Pacific Northwest. The first transcontinental railroad connection to the West Coast opened in 1869, making rail travel to California and then boat travel to the Columbia and Puget Sound much more efficient. In 1883, this line was finally extended, and the Northern Pacific also tied in.

The Oregon Trail primarily mattered to one particular type of Pacific Northwest resident: the displaced Appalachian. Descendants of Scots-Irish people, pushed out of Scotland, into Northern Ireland, and then into the mountain regions west of the east coast, were the biggest beneficiaries of the Oregon Trail. In contrast, railroads and ships brought New Englanders focused on resource extraction and commerce. This juxtaposition, farming versus logging, represents the defining political and cultural conflict within the colonial society on the ocean side of the mountains, stretching from Whatcom County down to some point near central California. (For a deeper dive into this, I recommend Colin Woodard’s American Nations.)

But this still doesn’t fully address our core question: What is the true end of the Oregon Trail?

It ends when we say it ends. Meeker’s journeys to mark the trail itself were an effort to keep the trail, or at least the memory of its mission, alive. History serves as a reminder of our mission, our culture. Marking the trail reminds us that our goal was to transplant our folkways from our previous homes and expand them into this new place.

Ending the Oregon Trail would mean acknowledging this history, but then moving forward toward justice. Our mission up to this point has not been fair, especially to the people who were here before we arrived. Neither the Appalachians nor the New Englanders who arrived by boat were interested, by and large, in justice for the society they displaced or the lives of the people of color they exploited while seeking prosperity.

So, in this way, we are very much still on the Oregon Trail. The Oregon Trail continues today, for everyone stepping out of SeaTac looking for a new mailing address. We are going to continue welcoming new residents; that isn’t in question. What is in question is the society they come into and our values.

Our history is not a static destination. It is a continuous journey shaped by human choices and evolving needs. Just as the trail concluded differently for each family seeking a new beginning, our understanding of our legacy must adapt. To acknowledge the end of the Oregon Trail, in all its varied forms, is not to diminish its historical significance but to recognize its complex and often challenging impact, particularly on the Indigenous communities whose lands were reshaped and lives uprooted by this influx of newcomers.

True historical understanding encourages us to embrace adaptation and growth, ensuring that our reverence for the past does not hinder our ability to address the pressing needs and challenges of today, fostering a society that reflects the values of inclusivity and justice for all who call the Pacific Northwest home.

Ultimately, the “end” of the Oregon Trail lies in how we choose to build our communities and welcome new residents today. It’s a question of whether we allow a rigid adherence to a past vision to limit our collective progress, or if we embrace an understanding of our heritage that prioritizes inclusivity, adaptability, and justice for all who live here now and in the future. The memory of the trail can serve as a powerful reminder of our capacity for change and our ongoing mission to forge a more equitable society, moving beyond simply marking a route to truly understanding its enduring consequences.

Olympia ’57 and the Arts Walk we always needed

May 17, 2025 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

Walking through downtown Olympia during Arts Walk this spring, I was struck by a realization:

Arts Walk has become what Lakefair was originally intended to be: a human-centered festival that brings people downtown and supports local businesses. What began in 1957 as a strategic effort by downtown retailers to draw shoppers back from the emerging suburban fringe has evolved, ironically, into something that now seems to conflict with its original purpose. Meanwhile, Arts Walk (especially the spring edition) has stepped into that role and done it better.

The first Lakefair took place just seven years after the Deschutes River was dammed to create Capitol Lake. Back then, Tumwater as a town stopped short of the Trosper and I-5 cloverleaf, Lacey barely extended beyond a few blocks around the St. Martin’s College campus, and Olympia’s downtown was the regional commercial hub. An aerial photo from 1957 shows a very different city. There’s no westside sprawl, no South Sound Center, no Capital Mall. Interstate 5 is only beginning to cut its path through the city. The southeast side is still a patchwork of empty fields. Downtown was everything.

Lakefair was born into that moment. The lake was new, a kind of novelty. We hadn’t built any parks around it, and people could still remember the squalor of the Depression era shanty town, Little Hollywood, the lake was meant to replace. Downtown retailers felt threatened by the spread of car-centric shopping centers to the south and west, and Lakefair was their answer: a family-friendly summer celebration rooted in Olympia’s historic center.

But the tide couldn’t be held back. By the 1980s, the construction of Capital Mall and South Sound Center pulled national retailers out of downtown. As rents dropped, local and niche businesses moved in. Downtown shrank in economic dominance, but it found something more interesting: being an actual human-scaled neighborhood. By going down, downtown Olympia grew up.

Lakefair, however, didn’t adapt. It stayed focused on big crowds and spectacle. It became a regional summer draw, people come in from Tumwater, Lacey, and the westside not to experience downtown but to experience the event. Today, the foot traffic is enormous, but not helpful. If you talk to people who live and work near downtown, many will say they avoid Lakefair. Ironically, the further someone lives from downtown, the more likely they are to enjoy it, because for some, it’s the only time they come. For those who frequent downtown, Lakefair is an interruption.

Compare that to Arts Walk. It’s right-sized. Embedded in the streets. Both the Friday night Luminary Procession and the Saturday Procession of the Species invite people not just to gather, but to stroll, to explore, and to be downtown. These events don’t shut down the regular rhythm of the neighborhood; they highlight it. Arts Walk brings people face-to-face with small businesses, galleries, performers, and each other. It’s not a performance to be watched from the sidelines; it’s an experience shared from within.

The seasonal timing is meaningful. Lakefair is scheduled for the height of Cascadian summer, long days, hot sun, and school-free weeks. But Arts Walk arrives at the beginning and end of the softer season. Spring Arts Walk, in particular, feels like a true civic ritual: the reawakening of our community after a long winter and a downtown that’s still very much alive.

Lakefair has also changed in ways that move it further from its roots. Food booths once reserved for nonprofits are now open to commercial vendors. Local nonprofits increasingly struggle to justify the effort and expense of participating. And though the Twilight Parade still winds its way through the city, it mirrors the spirit of Arts Walk’s two processions, just with a different energy: one is lighthearted and grassroots; the other, more grand and nostalgic.

There’s a larger parallel here, too. Just as Lakefair took its name and identity from the artificial lake at the city’s core, it may now face a similar fate. Capitol Lake, long celebrated as a civic centerpiece, has been revealed as ecologically harmful—shallow, warm, and lifeless. The planned restoration of the Deschutes Estuary will undo that mid-century engineering mistake, trading a static reservoir for a living tidal system. Something more natural. More fitting.

In the same way, Arts Walk fits Olympia. It flows through the streets, not around them. It thrives not in designated festival zones but in the storefronts, sidewalks, and alleys that make downtown what it is. If Lakefair is to survive in a post-lake Olympia, it can return to its roots. Maybe even borrow a few pages from Arts Walk. Move into the streets. Shrink the footprint. Reconnect with the businesses and people downtown.

I’m not a Lakefair hater. I have fond memories, and I go down there for at least two nights a year for rides, food and fireworks. I know many in our community still love Lakefair, too. But festivals should serve the places they’re held. Arts Walk has become Olympia’s true local celebration, reflecting how we live now, not how we used to.

We are struggling as a city to recover from years of car-dependent development. Most of the square miles of today’s Olympia have no actual places to walk to, we need to get into our cars for everything. The single-family zoning that dominates the landscape removed the housing capacity that used to, more or less, assure everyone had something to call a home. We’re working now to create more density, more actual businesses in our neighborhoods. More sidewalks and more reasons to use them. Call it creating more “people-oriented places” or just human-scale, but looking at what Lakefair was born to fight is actually where our future should be taking us.

Who could own what and who owned what

April 26, 2025 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

Sometimes I have an idea (like a few weeks ago) to figure something out, put together a research plan, execute it, and still come up seriously short. That’s exactly what happened the last couple of weeks as I tried to dig into the Alien Land Law and how it worked in Olympia.

One piece of our particular brand of Pacific Northwest racism that I left out of my post a few weeks back was, of course, the Alien Land Law. It existed for nearly our entire history, lasting until 1966, and undergirded much of how we treated racial minorities in the Pacific Northwest.

Long Background on Alien Land Laws

The Alien Land Law in Washington State, rooted in the state 1889 constitution and subsequent legislation, prohibited land ownership by residents ineligible for citizenship. Though seemingly race-neutral in its language, its primary aim was to disenfranchise non-white immigrants, particularly Chinese and Japanese individuals.

Initially, territorial law encouraged non-citizen land ownership to attract white settlers and foreign investment. However, economic anxieties among white laborers and farmers, combined with a rising tide of anti-Chinese sentiment, soon led to laws restricting land ownership for those deemed “ineligible to citizenship,” effectively targeting Asian immigrants who were barred from naturalization under federal law. Later iterations of the law focused even more directly on Japanese immigrants, further restricting their ability to lease or even hold land through their American-born children.

The question I had was: if the laws in Washington forbade Chinese and Japanese families from owning land, how did they operate businesses in Olympia during this era? The Olympia Historical Society points out that dozens of businesses across Olympia were operated by Asian families, though apparently not controlling the land underneath the businesses.

One method involved leveraging their U.S.-born children, which leads us into a reflection on today’s debates about the 14th Amendment and birthright citizenship.

Washington State’s Alien Land Laws initially targeted non-citizen land ownership, focusing primarily on Chinese and later Japanese immigrants. While the original laws didn’t explicitly address land ownership by the U.S.-born children of these immigrants—who were birthright citizens under the 14th Amendment, a loophole soon emerged. Families began purchasing land in their children’s names, allowing parents barred from owning property to indirectly control it through their citizen offspring.

In response, the legislature passed additional laws, notably in 1923, specifically stating that land held in the name of a child of an ineligible alien would be considered held in trust for the parent, effectively closing the loophole. In 1925, the Washington State Supreme Court case State v. Hirabayashi reinforced this interpretation, ruling against the transfer of land-holding stock to second-generation Japanese American children when their parents retained control, deeming it an evasion of the Alien Land Law.

This situation created a direct conflict with the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause. While the 14th Amendment unequivocally granted citizenship to those born within the United States, the Alien Land Laws limited the practical benefits of that citizenship, especially the right to own and control property. It highlighted the tension between the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship and state-level efforts to maintain racial discrimination.

This history dovetails with contemporary legal battles surrounding birthright citizenship, particularly efforts by the Trump administration to reinterpret the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause. Just as past lawmakers sought to create exceptions to citizenship rights based on parental status, current arguments attempt to carve out similar exceptions, revealing a recurring tension between constitutional principles and efforts to impose discriminatory limitations.

So Where Does That Leave Us in Olympia?

Who did own the land underneath those businesses?

What I was trying to find out was who the non-Asian families were who supported Asian-owned businesses by leasing or renting land to them. The real research (narrowing it down through property records on microfilm) will take some time. I’ll get to that eventually. For now, I’m content just sketching out the context.

Leasing or renting to Asian families did not escape the notice or ire of Olympia’s more racist white residents. From an Olympia Tribune editorial in the 1890s, we see a call for the expulsion of Chinese residents by legal means, especially by encouraging property owners to refuse to rent to them. The editorial reflects widespread fears among white laborers about job competition and portrays the Chinese community as an unwanted and growing threat. It even calls for the creation of a citizens’ association to coordinate exclusion efforts, promoting the motto: “Olympia for Olympians.”

From a separate, sympathetic article about the populist “People’s Party,” also from the 1890s: “We believe that those who patronize the Chinese are enemies of their white brethren, and we favor strict exclusion and entire letting alone of all Chinese and their sympathizers.”

When I poked around the same newspaper archives looking for records of who owned the land underneath Asian-owned businesses, I came up short. I can only assume that while business relationships were practical and necessary, they were considered perilous enough that few people talked about them openly.

The land owned by Sam Fun Locke’s family at the corner of Columbia and 5th is a good example of this land record puzzle. Locke was one of Olympia’s most successful Chinese businessmen, often called “The Mayor of Chinatown.” After his death, the property was passed along to his descendants. I can pick up the property transfers starting in the 1940s but can’t trace anything definitive before that.

I can, however, track the locations of his businesses through phone directory records, which makes it possible to compare them with land ownership records. That way, I could eventually find out when exactly Locke’s family came into possession of the land, and whether the same family owned it while Locke operated his business there.

So, there’s still more work to do. But this week, at least, I was able to lay out the policy and legal landscape before diving deeper.