Olympia hasn't always been how it is today, and not even the Capitol Campus has changed a bunch in the last 100 years.

Olytimeling.org chronicles the changing arrangement of the Capitol Campus (and hopefully more of Olympia in the future). Their article on the Old St. Pete's is pretty illustrative of their work:

Built in 1887, St. Peter Hospital was torn down in 1919 to make room for more Capitol Buildings. Google Earth overlayed with a 1908 Olympia Sanborn map shows that St. Peter Hospital faced 11th Avenue between Water and Columbia Streets. This would face what is now the General Administration building.

The Sisters of Providence raised money to build the hospital by soliciting donations from surrounding logging camps. They would sell hospital insurance as tickets of admission for use in times of need. Because of the dangerous nature of logging taking place in Puget Sound, these insurances proved useful. A Native American story pole, built by Chief William Shelton, stands in its place.

Their overlay of 1908 Olympia and the campus shows not only the old city street grid on what is now the green capitol lawn, but an old ravine that used to cut through much of the campus.

Click image for larger version.

Interesting stuff over there, head over and explore.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of interviewing Fred King, a retired architect who is the Chair of the Capitol Campus Design Advisory Committee regarding the proposed rezone of the Fourth Avenue isthmus, for the upcoming issue of Works In Progress. Here is a sneak preview:

Works In Progress: I understand that there were two presentations regarding the rezone proposal made by City of Olympia staff to the Capitol Campus Design Advisory Committee (CCDAC)?

Fred King: The first time we were just told there was a rezone proposal, and CCDAC members said we don’t know what the effect of this will be, give us some graphic illustrations of how this will affect views. The second time, the city staff came back with some building block type illustrations that purported to show how it would affect views from several locations on campus, although it wasn’t entirely clear at which locations. At that meeting, CCDAC expressed some concerns. We still felt that we didn’t have adequate evidence that the views on campus wouldn’t be adversely affected, especially by the taller buildings. From the beginning we have been opposed to any buildings in the fountain block. The reason for that is that during the several years when we were planning Heritage Park, there were discussions between the city and state about the overall park grouping, with Heritage Park on state land and the city park on city land, and there were agreements about how this would proceed, which included that block being entirely park.

Public art by Phillip Levine in Olympia.