Category: Olympia history (Page 7 of 9)

A few weeks back I put up a selection of a longer piece about E.N. Steele I’ve been polishing. Here’s another portion of that longer piece, this one dealing with the idea of the lost aspects of his life. I was thinking about the portion when I heard about the Oyster House burning down this week.

E.N. Steele became president and director of the chamber of commerce in the early 20s, and in 1925 he was elected as one of Olympia’s first city commissioners on a reform ticket. He served as one of Olympia’s inaugural planning commissioners and later as mayor. He was elected to the state legislature, and at least for awhile, served on a joint conference committee with young Warren Magnuson.

Of course, his most notable contributions was in the field of oysters. Owner and manager Oyster Company, Olympia 1907-1950; Rockpoint Oyster Company, Samish Bay, Washington 1922-1950; past president Pacific Coast Oyster Growers Association; past executive secretary Olympia Oyster Growers Association.

Steele also literally wrote the books on the shellfish industry through his life in “The Rise and Decline of the Olympia Oyster” and “The Immigrant (Pacific) Oyster.”

Here is the most significant lesson I take from my survey of E.N. Steele’s life:

Like his time as a lawyer defending Indians in treaty rights cases, Steele’s most significant and intimate details of his life are examples of how marks on history erodes. The craters in Washington State and Olympia of Steele’s time are practically gone for us.

For example, Steele’s largest contribution to our lives was writing the 1934 “Steele Act.” Until recently that law would rule how liquor was regulated in Washington State. As Washington State looked for a system to manage alcohol following the end of Prohibition, Steele worked with a University of Washington professor to create the system of laws that would remain on the books for almost 80 years. The system of state run stores and a Liquor Control Board was in force until 2010 when it was overturned by initiative.

Second, the Olympia neighborhood where the Steele family lived for years does not exist. The city blocks that now make up the east capitol campus were drawn off the map in the early 1960s. The corner of 14th and Franklin where the Steeles lived is somewhere north of the Department of Transportation Building and above a massive parking garage in the east capitol campus.

The street Steele looked out every morning now runs underground before joining Capitol Way. Evidence of the middle class neighborhood, which featured the city’s second high school and small lots with craftsmen homes can’t be found.

Even though we still have an Oyster House restaurant in Olympia on the site of an old shucking plant, the Olympia oyster is probably the faintest memory that made up Steele’s life. The shellfish that was so plentiful in our city that it was named after our city is practically gone from our bay. It barely even exists anywhere naturally in our local area.

In the “Rise and Decline of the Olympia Oyster,” Steele tracks the eventual death of the Olympia oyster industry and with it the last major sets of the species. The main causes of decline were Industrial pollution and development overtaking the oyster’s natural habitat. And, as evidenced by “Immigrant Oyster,” Steele’s book about the more resilient and foreign Pacific oysters, the shellfish industry simply moved on.

But, in Olympia, it was deliberate changes to our shoreline that erased the Oyster that was named for our city from our history. From Steele’s history of the Olympia oyster:

In Southern Puget Sound in the vicinity of Olympia. where they were most abundant.

In those days a wooden bridge crossed Budd Inlet near the location of the present concrete bridge to the Westside district. In honor of an early pioneer, it was called the “Marshfield” bridge. Chinatown was located south of this bridge, along the east shore. So, in territorial days the Chinamen took over possession of the oysters south of the bridge. North of the bridge and on both sides of the bay, the oyster beds were claimed by the Indians who had a village on the west side, just north of the bridge. The natural oyster beds south of the bridge are now covered by water due to the dam recently constructed to create a lake for capital beautification.

I’m not exactly sure why I focus on the things that are gone now when I look around Steele’s life. I was first drawn in because of the small details I picked up about him being a treaty rights lawyer. But, the Steele Act, his neighborhood and the Olympia oyster are there too for me.

Maybe its how we don’t write failure into our histories. We only focus on the things that ended up having an impact.

…

His book I cited earlier, “Letters from Grandpa,” is literally a series of letters from Steele to his grandchildren. Each chapter is a letter that tells a story about an episode in his life. The letters are peppered with “with love to you all” and “I love you all very much.” These aren’t words of a grandfather laying down regrets, but stories of a life well-lived.

But, we don’t think about the neighborhood we lost. We think about the natural growth of the campus, the modern office buildings naturally counterbalancing the traditional stone buildings across Capitol.

We also don’t think much about Olys at one point being picked where Capitol Lake is now. We can still buy little Olys from the Oyster House, though you aren’t sure where they’re picked from unless you ask.

Just over ten years ago Andrew Mickel shot a police officer in Red Bluff, California. Almost right up to that point Mickel had been a resident of Olympia and a student out at Evergreen. And, for the time being, his is still a resident of California’s death row.

Since those years, soon after I had finished up my own education at Evergreen, Mickel had held an interest for me, especially after Rachel Corrie was killed the next fall. Mickel and Corrie seemed to the poles of Evergreen and that part of Olympia culture that revolves around Evergreen.

While Mickel was obviously criminal and reprehensible, his beliefs where parroted from anti-government, anti-government, and especially anti-police political culture that is still part of Olympia.

I’ve wondered about Mickel’s time in Olympia. I lived here at the time, I wonder if I ever saw him (maybe on campus) and not remembered him later when his face became news.

From one of the stories that reference his time here:

Mickel chose this school, with its main gathering area called “Red Square.” He ostensibly came to study creative writing. The college was not as academically rigorous as his parents would have liked and, in his freshman year – when many new college students are confined to large lecture halls and tackling basic requirements – he was allowed to do independent study.

I actually take offense to this passage, that Evegreen isn’t as “rigourous” as other, more traditional schools. While Evergreen doesn’t have the same set-up as large lecture hall schools, it is just as hard (or harder) to get by as a geoduck, especially for someone expecting a more traditional set-up. Evergreen is essentially sink or swim

It was during this time that Mickel’s personal politics got increasingly intense.

In December 2001, he went to Israel with a pro-Palestinian activist group pushing for an end to Israeli “occupation.” The following summer, he went to Colombia, South America, to study nonviolent resistance, and to Northern Ireland, another global hot spot. In the Pacific Northwest, he joined protests against the World Trade Organization and was arrested in Seattle in April 2002 for interfering with a police officer.

Tehama County District Attorney Gregg Cohen would later say in court that Mickel had reached for an officer’s gun during the Seattle arrest, though Mickel would staunchly deny that in his jailhouse interview with The Bee three days before his sentencing.

But there is no denying that Andy Mickel became more political at college. He began railing about social injustice and corporate irresponsibility and capitalism run amok.

Scott Dixon, his old tutor back in Springfield, saw Mickel on a Thanksgiving visit home and heard him talk about politics – about corporations, environmentalism and the like. To him, Mickel seemed no more strident than many politically minded college students.

Late 2002 was not too late after 1999 in Puget Sound. As Fred Moody in Seattle and the Demons of Ambition, 1999 was a reckoning for the region, coming up against the limits of our self regard and economic growth. Young men like Mickel who protested violently in the streets in 1999 were the physical representation of this.

Olympia then had our own May Day protests in 2000 and 2001 and then 9/11 seems to sharpen everything.

This particular passage in the Chico News-Review feature on Mickel (in which the writer constantly refers to him by his pseudonym McCrae) is interesting in terms of his time in Olympia:

Evergreen’s reputation was again questioned after May Day protests in
each of the past two years. Two years ago demonstrators—including a
large contingent of Evergreen students—snarled traffic in Olympia during
protests.

Coincidentally, (Mickel) who was arrested at a protest last April for
obstructing a sidewalk, lived less than a half-mile from the Bayview
Thriftway supermarket, where a 59-year-old man died Nov. 8 after he was
subdued with a Taser stun gun following an alleged shoplifting attempt.

Activists in Olympia have charged police brutality in the case.

A spokeswoman for the Olympia Police Department said the department
had no contact with  (Mickel) in the past and would be assisting California
authorities in their investigation. The department would not be
conducting an investigation of its own.

The incident the paper references is the death of Steven Edwards in the Bayview parking lot in early November 2002. Edwards had drawn a gun and was wrestling with a security guard who had accused him of shop lifting. After being stunned twice by the taser and handcuffed, Edwards stopped breathing and died. It might have been a coincidence, or the death of Edwards may have pushed Mickel out of Olympia to murder.

Just like Mickel, people continue to reference Edwards in Olympia, as he was the topic of a memorial protest just last year.

Currently, for Mickel, he’s on California’s death row. Voters rejected an initiative to ban the death penalty last year, so he’s currently working his way through an automatic appeal process.

Mickel represented himself when he was convicted and sentenced to death, but he was appointed a lawyer who was as late as this spring filing briefs with the state supreme court.

Today, on one fringe Mickel is remembered and described as “profoundly moving and inspiring.”

And, in Olympia he is largely forgotten, which really isn’t all that surprising. He really had no roots here, made little impact beyond his circle. He more or less represents a certain type of transient Olympian who attends Evergreen, comes by himself in his early 20s  and then moves on. Usually not in such a tragic fashion though.

On July 4, 1852 Daniel Bigelow stood up at an Independence Day gathering in Olympia and gave a speech that would spur a division in what was then the massive Oregon Territory. While Bigelow’s speech doesn’t mention a split with the Willamette Valley dominated southern portion of the territory, the speech is rife with references of a natural love of liberty.

Bigelow’s was the second speech in two years on the topic. John B. Chapman gave a speech on the same day in 1851. But, because Chapman himself didn’t play nice with the Democratic machine in greater Oregon, his secession effort ended dead in its tracks. Chapman left the territory by the time a Bigelow inspired convention happened in November 1852 at Monticello (where Longview is now).

Recently, I finally took the trek out beyond Mima Mounds to find where Bordeaux, Washington used to be.

Just a quick and important note before I go on. It seems that at least some of the old town site is on private property. I didn’t realize this when I was out there, most of the land is inside Capital Forest. But, on closer inspection, there are a couple of parcels that are privately owned. So, to get to some of the old town site, you should probably ask permission first.

Other than there still being parts of it around, Bordeaux seems like a pretty typical old timber town that lost its reason to exist.

Dark Roast Blend, Washington Ghost Towns, Webducks’s flickr set and this discussion at MyFamily each give a lot of details and imagery of what you can find out there today.

Mark Gibbs and Edward Echtle also went out back in 1988 and shot this footage:

Being out there and seeing what I saw and seeing the general setting and seeing what other saw, brings up one major question for me. Why isn’t Bordeaux, WA a park? Or at least, why isn’t there a maintained set of trails to the old ruins that would make it easier to appreciate the old town? I had to turn back fairly quickly because the undergrowth this time of year had taken over the small trails I was able to find.

Now that I think about it, I probably picked the worst time of year to trek through the woods to find some old buildings, the stinging nettles and other vegetation would too high for us to make it very far. I’m probably going to take another shot at it when it’s colder.

Other than pointing out all the good resources there are out on Bordeaux, here’s my main contribution. This is an aerial photo from 1941 when Bordeaux was in its twilight, overlaid with a modern map.

Joseph Bunting is largely believed to have killed Quiemuth in Olympia in 1856. It’s assumed Bunting killed the Quiemuth because he believed the Nisqually had a hand in his father-in-law’s death. More than 20 years later, Bunting’s daughter Blanche and son-in-law Lorenzo Perkins were killed. His son Bob Bunting brought the last of the murderer to justice.

The most interesting thing about the death of Blanche (Bunting) Perkins and Lorenzo Perkins is that when several rounds of of white men went out to look for their killers, Blanche’s dad wasn’t among them. Her older brother Bob eventually put the entire episode to bed. Her uncle John was part of one of the early groups that went looking for her murders. But her dad, Joseph Bunting, is never mentioned in the aftermath of her death.

Just over two decades after following the same trail up from the Columbia River to Puget Sound, the body of “Big Mike” Simmons entered the county that almost bore his name. Simmons died on November 15, 1867 at the land claim farm he took after failing at being a timber man in Mason County.

Michael Troutman Simmons is certainly one of the giants of Thurston County history. Leader of the first group of Americans to settle in Puget Sound, delegate to the territorial convention, Indian agent and businessman. Yet, he died poor and almost anonymous in Lewis County.

We seem to know everything about Michael Troutman Simmons. But, for me, there are as many questions as facts about Simmons that I need answered before I get a true image of him.

First off, what is it about Clanrick Crosby?


Soon after this other founder of Thurston County and Tumwater arrived in 1851 (some would say the founder of Tumwater, since he did more to move New Market to Tumwater than Simmons) the two men filed suit against each other. Both men claimed ownership of the land around the Deschutes falls, which would prove to be the economic heart of Tumwater. According to at least one source, the first lawsuit spawned additional lawsuits that lasted beyond Simmons’ death.

Why did he leave Olympia?


His first venture out of Olympia and Tumwater was a mill on Skookum Bay in Mason County he started in 1853 with Wes Gosnell. A newspaper article announcing to Simmons’ new mill, also noted that the valuable land near Tumwater was “no longer entangled in vexatious chancery.” The courts had apparently settled in Crosby’s favor by 1853 (for the moment), and Simmons had taken his enterprises north.

By 1857 he is listed as a property owner in Sawamish (before it was called Mason) County.

For a man whose legacy is tied so closely to Tumwater, he spent more of his time in Washington away from Tumwater then in it.

What about his race for congress?


Is there more to know about Simmons’ failed campaign in 1854 for territorial delegate? He ran in the general election as an Independent and lost by a landslide.

The nomination of Columbia Lancaster as the Democratic candidate in 1854 was one of territorial unity over sectionalism, according to the papers. Lancaster was a resident of the Columbia portion of the new territory. The newspaper in 1854 writes about the state having two centers, one on Puget Sound, the other on the Columbia. Lancaster brings those two together. “The first blow of union and democracy of the territory has been struck”

Simmons wasn’t nominated (or possibly even present) at the Democratic convention that chose Lancaster. James Patton Anderson of Tennessee (who later served in the Confederacy) was the strong runner up in four ballots. Anderson would be elected delegate a year later and serve until Issac Stevens himself was elected in 1857.

Yet, a letter written arguing for Simmons’ independent candidacy pointed out that five of the six who had been nominated were new to the territory and all were lukewarm for the recent split from Oregon. On the other hand, Simmons had lived on Puget Sound for almost a decade by that point and was an early advocate for a split from Oregon.

There’s not a shred of irony from Simmons or his supporters when he mentioned that newcomers were taking over territorial politics.His ten years (compared to the centuries of the Indian tribes) were apparently to him, the most important ten years.

This feud with the Democrats in 1854 would eventually spill into other contests when Simmons apparently even supported the growing Republican party in the territory (as noted in “Confederacy of Ambition”). Political pressure was put to local civic leaders to force Simmons out as Indian agent because of his partisan disloyalty.

Doan’s Cafe, Olympia, WA 1906 (UW Digital Collections)

From a longer piece I’m working on about E.N. Steele, Olympia lawyer, civic leader, oyster booster and treaty rights activist:

Earl Newell was born outside of Des Moines, Iowa in 1881. After graduating from State University of Iowa, he made a short tour of the west. Once in Olympia, he sat down for a dinner of oysters. That meal sealed Olympia for Newell.

Steele tells the story in his unpublished manuscript, “Letters to Grandpa” about a chance meeting with an old friend and an oyster lunch kept Steele in Olympia:

I again met people from Seattle who strongly advised me to locate in Seattle. Two of my classmates in college had located. But again some thing told me “No, see Olympia first.” So I listened, but I had to change at Centralia to get to Olympia. And that proved to be the most fortunate decision of all. We arrived there about noon. Not knowing where I was going I started toward what appeared to be the business district. I had not gone more than a couple of blocks till I met a young man. We took a good look at each other.

Then he stopped facing each other and he almost shouted at me “Pete Steele, where did you come from?” “Roy MacRenalds, where did you come from?” I then recognized him, for he said “Pete”, and I had not heard that since I left school in Perry, Iowa, We had been friends in school. We had both lost track of the other. After a little chatter he said he was on his way to lunch and asked me to go with him. We went to Doan’s Oyster House. He ordered Doan’s oyster pan roast. As they served it he said, “Pete, after you eat this you will never want to leave Olympia.” He had spoken more than he knew. I had never eaten any thing I enjoyed so much.

So Steele stayed. He started out as a teacher in Tenino, but eventually entered the law practice in Olympia in 1903.

Steele’s love for Olympia is obvious in his writing. He was either a great salesman for Olympia or the rest of his Iowa-based family (four brothers, sister and mom and dad) had tenuous ties to Iowa. Within months of Earl settling in Puget Sound, all seven of them made the trek west to Washington State.

Thank you, Internet Archive. You Rock.

Olympia Today: May Day Marchers Head to Westside Streets 

I wrote this piece when I was running the above Olympia Time website. At the time, the site was actually owned by a small web design firm that I approached as part of an independent contact at Evergreen. Ah, the independent contract… boy, those were the days.

My idea was to add regular content to a site that was already sort of useful (with a perl weather script and a series of interesting maps) and watch what happened. I think I called the project an online community newspaper.

The run up to May Day 2000 in Olympia was stressful. It would come only five months after the WTO protests paralyzed Seattle and no one knew if these sort of things were rising to some crescendo. In the end, I think it would be remembered as a big and long, if otherwise uneventful and typical Olympia protest. Traffic was tied up, but no lasting impact.

May Day 2000 turned out to be (as I remember it) the high water mark for the site under my control. It was certainly the most interesting day for me and the highest web traffic day too.

My goal was to head over to the west side, watch May Day unfold, take notes and pictures, and then go home and put everything online. My ultimate goal was to beat the Olympian online with a final report, and I think I really did do that.

 

Celebrants and protestors marched
this afternoon from the Value Village at Division and Harrison to the corner
of Black Lake and Cooper Point. The marchers took the intersection in what
they call an act against global capitalism.  

I was also more interested in the other people not taking part of the march (like me), but were there to watch in some official capacity:

No local politicians were
recognized, but Olympia’s Police Chief Gary Michel was present, standing
with other senior officers north of the intersection on Black Lake.
 

I love my third person reference, no politicians were recognized, instead of “I didn’t see anyone I recognized.”

I was also fascinated by the media response:

The march attracted
much of the regional media, including Olympia bureau chief for the Seattle
Times David Postman (who also brought a photographer), an AP photographer,
KING 5, KOMO 4, KGY’s Doug Adamson, the Olympian, and helicopters from
KIRO 7 and Fox’s Q13.

KGY was the most active among
the media, interrupting their regular broadcast to bring updates. Adamson
road shotgun on a specially outfitted truck in which he broadcasted updates
and followed the march. The Olympian also did their first midday update
on their website to cover the story.

Doug Adamnson really did do a massive job that day, I mean check him out.

And, I suppose I really didn’t “beat” the Olympian, they did do a midday update. But, it is worth noting that if I read myself right, it was their first midday website update ever. That’s certainly something.