The Olympia Food Conspiracy was Olympia's first storefront food cooperative. It was located on the southwest corner of Central Street and Bigelow Avenue, photo circa 1972. ~Courtesy of Bigelow Highlands Neighborhood Association archive.

Fishing rights supporters walk in the 1966 Memorial Day Treaty Trek.

~Courtesy of Washington State Historical Society, State Capital Museum.

A well-known piece of 1970's history is the Nanny Noodles house, at the corner of Overhulse Road and Eleventh Avenue NW, circa 1979.

~Courtesy of Marge Brown private collection.

Demonstrators assemble on the State Capitol steps in support of Indian Fishing rights. On hand were various Indian groups, the Peace and Freedom Party, Socialist Workers Party, Black Panthers and Students for a Democratic Society. ~ Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Photograper: Staples

Our People; continued

Empowerment

Empowerment

The right to fish in usual and accustomed places was guaranteed to treaty tribes in the 1854 Treaty of Medicine Creek.

From 1857 to 1917, the Nisqually reservation consisted of 4,700 acres on both sides of the river. The Pierce County side -- about 70 percent of the reservation -- was condemned in 1917 to become Fort Lewis. The Indians whose property was taken were offered settlements. One evicted Nisqually man, Willie Frank, used his allotment money to purchase six acres on the west side of the river, outside reservation boundaries. This place has come to be known as Frank's Landing. And in the 1960s and 1970s, members of the Frank's Landing Indian community were actively involved in the emerging Indian Rights movement.

Prior to World War I, Indians fished only at the tolerance of local game wardens. In the late teens, the state stepped up its enforcement against Indian fishing outside reservation boundaries, and Indians were often arrested for attempting to fish in their "usual and accustomed" waters. In 1937, gillnetting in rivers was outlawed. Indians refused to concede that their treaty rights were invalid, regardless of any state court decisions to the contrary.

Indians continued to fish both on and off reservation, and Indians continued to get arrested for illegal fishing.

Things heated up in the mid-1950s when Puyallup Indian Bob Satiacum began net fishing on the Puyallup River. He was arrested but charges were dismissed because the state had failed to produce evidence that the regulations prohibiting net fishing were reasonable and necessary for the conservation of fish. This decision gave encouragement to other treaty Indians, and Indian fishing increased.

At Frank's Landing on the Nisqually River, arrests by game agents for illegal fishing had become frequent by the early sixties, and the Frank's Landing families became activists in the struggle for fishing rights. Al Bridges, Billy Frank, Jr., Don McCloud, Jack McCloud, Neugen Kautz, Herman Johns and others were arrested on multiple occasions. Al Bridges was jailed eight times within two years. Wives of the jailed men -- Maiselle Bridges, Norma Frank, Janet McCloud -- openly fished in their stead, and were arrested.

Maiselle Bridges and Norma Frank contacted Jack Tanner, an African-American Tacoma attorney who saw their struggle as an extension of the Civil Rights movement. By 1964, a full-blown fishing war between the tribes and the State of Washington was underway, both in the courts and on the rivers.

In a two-month period, 13 Indians were arrested 16 times for illegal net fishing on the Nisqually. The so-called "Battle of Frank's Landing" -- a violent confrontation between Indians and state officers -- occurred on October 13, 1965. Celebrities Marlon Brando and Dick Gregory joined the Indians' cause, bringing additional national media attention to Olympia. Comedian Dick Gregory and his wife Lillian net-fished on the Nisqually, were arrested and served time in the old Thurston County jail on the corner of Capitol Way and Eleventh Avenue.

In the late sixties, Olympia was the site of numerous protests and encampments on the Capitol grounds. Indians and their supporters dropped nets at the Fifth Avenue dam at Capitol Lake in September 1968. Al and Maiselle Bridges' daughters - Suzette, Valerie, and Allison - emerged as young leaders in the Indian Rights struggle.

United States v. Washington was filed in Federal District Court in Tacoma in 1970. The U.S. sued the State of Washington on behalf of seven tribes. In February 1974, the court announced Judge George H. Boldt's decision: that the state had systematically violated the legal rights of the Northwest Indians by depriving them of the right to fish as guaranteed by the Stevens treaties. The Boldt decision gave treaty Indians rights to half of the state's harvestable salmon. Angry non-Indians -- especially sports and commercial fishermen -- hung Judge Boldt in effigy and attacked the decision as "un-American."

In the years since the Boldt decision, Puget Sound Indians have made economic, social and cultural gains. The ruling restored the tribes' most critical economic and cultural resource -- salmon. The Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission was set up to manage the off-reservation fishery in Puget Sound waters. Territorial Governor Stevens could never have foreseen the legal tangles and turns of event that have strengthened the rights of South Sound's treaty Indians.

Environmentalists

Two exceptional women worked tirelessly to preserve the South Sound's natural environment.

Margaret McKenny (1885-1969) was an educator, author, and conservationist. She attended Providence Academy, the University of Washington, and the Lowthrop School of Landscape Architecture in Massachusetts. In 1919, she established a progressive kindergarten and primary school in Olympia. She spent the early years of her career in the East, where, among other things, she worked for the American Museum of Natural history and co-authored the classic "Field Guide to Wildflowers of North America," with Roger Tory Peterson.

McKenny authored 15 books. An expert on mushrooms, McKenny wrote "Mushrooms of Wood and Field," published in 1929, and "The Savory Wild Mushroom," published in 1962.

McKenny returned to her native Olympia in 1943, and became active as a conservationist and defender of our natural resources. She helped found the Olympia branch of the National Audubon Society. She fought to keep the oak trees on Legion Way from being destroyed, fought to retain Sylvester Park as a public square, and fought to maintain the old watershed (now Watershed Park) as a wilderness area. McKenny was also active in the movement to save the Nisqually Delta.

Florence "Flo" Brodie (1915-1992), an enthusiastic and dedicated preservationist, is best remembered for her efforts to preserve the Nisqually Delta. Brodie moved to Olympia in the 1940s, and became good friends with McKenny. She was also an active volunteer at the Washington Sate Capital Museum and helped establish a program of fine arts exhibitions.

Developers had been eyeing the Nisqually Delta for projects ranging from an industrialized port to a garbage dump to an aluminum mill. Concerned environmentalists wanted to protect the sole remaining unspoiled river delta on Puget Sound as habitat for native wildlife and a stopover for migratory birds. The Nisqually Delta Association was formed in 1969, and Brodie served as president from 1969 to 1980.

The efforts of the Nisqually Delta Association paid off in 1974 when 1,300 acres were designated as a National Wildlife Refuge. In 1975, Brodie was recognized as "Environmentalist of the Year" by the Washington Environmental Council.

Greeners & Hippies

When The Evergreen State College opened in April 1971, the culture of Olympia was influenced by student activism.

The Evergreen influence was felt throughout the community. In the vicinity of the college were about a dozen "named households," where students and "Greener-types" explored alternative lifestyles.

A well-known house was Nanny Noodles. It was painted by artist Cappy Johnson in 1975. Over the years, the house evolved from a child-care center (hence the name) to a cooperative living household to a women's household. It was the site of the first Champagne Breakfast Celebration of International Women's Day.

The house lost its "noodles" when it was repainted about five years ago.

In 1971, a member-run food cooperative, the Olympia Food Conspiracy, was set up in an old neighborhood grocery store in northeast Olympia. The co-op was organized by Frank Fatseas and Stephen Wilcox, and occupied the building for about two years.

The grocery was torn down in the 1970s. From about 1929 to 1956, the building housed a family-owned neighborhood grocery operated by John and Virgil Utterback. James and Florence Bigelow ran the corner store from 1957 to1964.

Today, our City is home to the Olympia Food Coop, a succcessful cooperative venture with stores on the east and west sides of town. In addition, we support an active Farmers Market.

A number of organic farmers offer Community Supported Agriculture programs to residents, which helps support small farms and preserves our soil and water for future generations.

Olympians, from the first immigrants to the present, have always taken initiative in pursuing their dreams. Whatever their ventures --capitalistic or cooperative, secular or spiritual -- the men and women of South Sound have worked passionately to create a vibrant and sustainable community. It is a heritage we can all be proud of, and a heritage we can carry forward into the future.

Clara Pottle Sylvester came to Olympia in 1854 after she married the city's founder, Edmund Sylvester. She hosted the first meeting of the Woman's Club of Olympia in 1883. ~Washington State Historical Society/State Capital Museum Collection.

The Olympian Copyright 2000

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