The following is a timeline covering the history of Olympia starting in 1853 going through 2016. How should this timeline end? With estuary restoration or with the ongoing management of a failed lake? That choice is ours to make.
- 1853 Olympia becomes the Capitol of the Washington Territory – Edmund Sylvester donates a land parcel for the first legislative building.
- 1854 Treaty of Medicine Creek
- 1889 Washington statehood. The Federal government provides a grant of 132,000 acres, mostly forest, to fund capitol construction.
- 1890s Crude fishladders constructed at Tumwater Falls. The first proposal to dam the Deschutes River is made. The Olympia Brewery begins producing beer. Klondike gold rush begins.
- 1893 Ernest Flagg wins first Capitol design competition.
- 1909 First major sale of timber for Capitol construction.
- 1911-12 Wilder & White win second Capitol design competition. Dredging and filling of Port Peninsula, Swan Town Slough takes place. Construction of capitol campus begins.
- 1915 P. H. Carlyon proposes an earthen dam across Budd Inlet to replace failed bridge at 4th Ave.
- 1922-26 Port District established, carries out dredging and filling.
- 1927 Wilder and White firm completes its contract; Olmstead Brothers firm brought back in for landscaping. James Dawson leads the project.
- 1929 Olmsted Brothers firm rings in long time Washington consultant J J Bonnell for grounds landscaping.
- 1930 Plans for the landscape and traffic are completed.
- 1933 Olympia Chamber of Commerce and House of Representatives call for a WPA canal construction project to connect Olympia to Greys Harbor instead of building Grand Coulee Dam. With federal funding, period of active Capitol construction gets underway.
- 1937 State Legislature funds land acquisition along the Deschutes waterfront to extend the Capitol Campus.
- 1938-42 The razing of Little Hollywood begins.
- 1940 Campus buildings completed.
- 1946 Olympia Planning Commission hires consultant Charles Eliot III, who outlines what becomes the Deschutes Basin Project.
- 1946-47 Washington Department of Fisheries launches Deschutes River Salmon Program.
- 1948 James W Carey and Associates of Seattle hired to design a dam.
- 1949 Deschutes Basin appropriation bill passed. Dam is Phase I. completed in 1951; first lake algae appears that summer, prompting calls to the health department.
- 1951 Deschutes Parkway built. Phase II – East Campus construction begins 1950s.
- 1957 First Lakefair. Discussions begin over creating a swim park, while Department of Fisheries announces plans to turn the lake into a Fish Farm.
- 1962 Committee of the 60s promotes a bond to create a park and swim facility. Beach est’d 1964.
- 1967 East Campus Landscape plan presented by Lawrence Halprin.
- 1968 Fish-in on the 5th Avenue Bridge.
- 1969 Construction of Marathon Park.
- 1979 West Campus listed as an Historic District with the National Register of Historic Places.
- 2003 CLAMP Steering Committee launches Deschutes Estuary Feasibility Study.
- 2009 CLAMP Final Report released recommending Deschutes estuary restoration.
- 2016 WA Department of Enterprise Services begins process to review options for management of Capitol Lake – including restoration of the Deschutes estuary.
