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OLYMPIA |
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Just a muddy little logging community when picked as Washington's
territorial capital in 1853, OLYMPIA has never really become the
metropolis its founders had hoped, instead continuing to remain somewhat
a backwater locale despite government efforts to spruce it up. Its
downtown area is small, with a few blocks of stores and restaurants
presided over by the neo-Romanesque Old Capitol at Seventh Avenue
between Washington and Franklin, home mainly to bureaucratic offices.
Nevertheless, it's quite a busy little town, with state employees
knocking around during the day and students from the Evergreen State
College, a popular liberal arts school, pepping up the nightlife.
There's a well-established Farmers' Market downtown at 401 N Capitol Way
(AprilDec weekends, and occasional weekdays; www.farmers-market.org ),
north of which is a boardwalk with some decent places to eat .
The state offices are arranged around neat lawns on the Capitol Campus ,
just south of downtown. It's worth taking a tour of the imposing
neoclassical Legislative Building (daily 10am3pm; free;
www.ga.wa.gov/visitor ) completed in 1928 after more than three decades
of work, if only to wonder at the sheer energy of the pioneers who set
out to construct a close replica of the Capitol building in Washington,
DC, in what was then a backwoods on the far side of the continent. Eight
blocks south, the small State Capitol Museum , 211 W 21st Ave (TuesSun
10am4pm, weekends opens at noon; $2; www.wshs.org/wscm ), juxtaposes a
restored dining room with displays of Native American basketwork and
local natural history.
A short drive south of Olympia, tiny TUMWATER was Washington's first
pioneer community, settled in 1845 by a group that included Bing
Crosby's grandparents. Its name comes from the tumbling water of the
Deschutes River, which is still used at the Olympia Brewery , Schmidt
Place and Custer Way off I-5 exit 103 (tours MonSat 9am4.30pm; free). As
the last remaining national brewery in the region (ironically producing
Rainier and Henry Weinhard brews, two of its former rivals, which were
swallowed up by current owner Miller Beer), the Olympia complex
overlooks Tumwater Falls , now part of a park but once a rich
salmon-fishing site for the Nisqually tribe.
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from $68.66
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