Steve Bloom/The Olympian
Olympia senior planner Shanna Stevenson checks out a crack in the exterior of Drees, on the corner of Legion Way and Washington Street. Several downtown buildings bear testimony to the power of Wednesday's quake.

Photo courtesy of Washington State Historical Society
The back of the Olympian Hotel is shown after a mag-nitude 7.1 earthquake struck in 1949. The Olympian Hotel also sustained heavy damage in Wednesday's quake.

Photo courtesy of Washington State Historical Society
The Mottman Building, at Fourth Avenue and Capitol Way, is pictured after the 1949 quake. Stacks of lumber were used to shore up the damaged building.

Steve Bloom/The Olympian
Severe roof damage has closed Orca Books in downtown Olympia.

Hunt for damage continues

Buildings bear the jagged scars of Wednesday's earthquake

PATRICK CONDON, THE OLYMPIAN

OLYMPIA -- It took less than a minute Wednesday to scar buildings that together had accumulated thousands of years of history.

Buildings where fortunes were made and lost, reputations built and shattered.

A grand hotel, the site of both majestic inaugural balls and cutthroat political deal-making.

A community bank, one of the most ornate and classically designed buildings on the downtown Olympia cityscape.

An independent jewelry store, one of the oldest family-owned businesses in all of Washington.

A Legion hall that welcomed home the battle-scarred veterans of each of the last century's wars.

An historic school, where countless thousands of the city's children learned to read and write, and took their first steps toward adulthood.

Each of these places, and hundreds more, were shaken last week by a magnitude 6.8 earthquake that didn't care if all the historical declarations and honors in the world had been bestowed on the buildings it struck.

Today, less than a week after Wednesday's earthquake, the future of these and other historic buildings remains in doubt. While none are likely to be demolished, the damage they sustained chips away at the collective and individual memories that come together to form a history of Olympia and the South Sound.

"It's not just the buildings, but the stories that go with them," said Shanna Stevenson, planner for the city of Olympia and member of the Olympia Heritage Commission. "They're all of a piece, and if you lose a piece, you lose a story that's important."

The grand hotel

Opened before a standing-room-only crowd of 400 on July 16, 1920, the Olympian Hotel -- now the Olympian Apartments -- was once the crown jewel in a long line of hotels built to accommodate state lawmakers looking for a home during the legislative session.

"The history of hotels has been integral to the city of Olympia," Stevenson said.

Forming a square with the Old Capitol Building, the Reed Block and Sylvester Park, the spot at Washington Street and Legion Way was the beating heart of Washington government. It's been said that more political business was conducted in the hotel than in the Capitol itself.

In 1975, the hotel was converted into apartment housing, with shops and restaurants on the first floor, including the Urban Onion and Fireside Books.

The earthquake rocked the building to its core, and preliminary assessments raised the possibility of condemnation. The outlook has since improved somewhat, and the building could remain standing.

Community bank

Of all the buildings damaged in the quake, perhaps none was hit harder than Washington Federal Savings at the corner of Capitol Way and Fourth Avenue. Its ornate terra-cotta trimming peeled off the side, collapsing into dusty piles of rubble.

Built in 1914 and 1915 and first known as the Olympia National Bank, the building was conceived by Joseph Wohleb, commonly referred to as "the man who designed Olympia." Designed in the neo-classical style with cornices, friezes and fluted pilasters, it typifies the "Bank as Temple" concept in American life, Stevenson said.

Steve Cooper, the building's owner, said it will be rebuilt to exactly mimic its historical glory.

"It's not just kind of important, it's imperative," Cooper said. "It's a symbol of our community, it's part of our past. It's a connection to that past."

The jeweler

Talcott Jewelers, immediately north of the bank on Capitol Way, may be as important a link to Olympia's history as any building in the city.

In 1872, Lucius Lord Talcott and his sons, Charles, George and Grant, came West and established Talcott Brothers Inc., selling jewelry and watches.

They opened their store at its current site in 1882, the fourth brick building in Olympia. In 1889, the Talcotts designed the Washington State Seal.

Today the store is owned and managed by Richard Talcott, the great-great-grandson of Lucius Lord Talcott. The store took quite a shaking in the earthquake, but Talcott said it held up well and is reopened.

"We were lucky," Talcott said.

The Legion hall

The American Legion Hall at 219 Legion Way opened shortly after the end of World War I to accommodate the Alfred William Leach Post No. 3, the third legion post to be established in Washington state. At one time, it was among the longest continuously used Legion halls in the United States.

In its lifetime, the Legion Hall was the site of thousands of community and family events. For a time, it housed an ice rink where Olympic medal-winning skaters learned to skate.

The utilitarian structure, also designed by Wohleb, has not been much in use the last few years. The quake dislodged huge chunks of bricks from its distinctive gabled parapet, and was still tagged uninhabitable over the weekend.

The historic school

Lincoln Elementary School is the oldest school building in Olympia that still houses students. It was one of four mission-style schools Wohleb designed for the Olympia School District. It was built in 1923 for $115,607.

"I can't even tell you how many people come here every week, daily even, and tell me, 'My grandpa went here. My uncle, my father, my aunt went here,' " said Principal Cheryl Petra. "This place is amazing."

Lincoln's distinctive architecture is marked by its Spanish colonial ornamentation, and up until the earthquake, it retained all its original features.

The earthquake left structural damage at the east end of Lincoln that will take an estimated three to six weeks to repair. In the meantime, classes housed at that end will be in other parts of the school and at nearby St. John's Episcopal Church.

Petra says she is hopeful the school can re-open to serve future generations of students.

A long list

The list of damaged buildings is long and growing, and it grows more heartbreaking with each addition:

-The Reed Block at Washington Street and Legion Way, which was built in 1891. Now the home of Drees, it has at various times housed the Daily Olympian, the Olympia Post Office and the Olympia motor stage depot.

-The Mottman Building, which dates back to 1883 and was a major merchandising mart located on Capitol Way, which was for many years a key highway linking Portland and Seattle.

-The Knox Building, another of the mission-style schools Wohleb designed in the early 1920s and now the headquarters of the Olympia School District and home to Avanti High School, the district's alternative high school.

-Olympia Automotive Supply, one of the few remaining examples of a commercial building style prevalent in Olympia in the early 1920s, and now the home of Orca Books.

-The Capitol Theater, one of downtown Olympia's most treasured structures since its opening in 1924;

-Olympia Knitting Mills, one of a series of buildings that made up a small manufacturing complex in the early 1900s, which now houses Fish Tale Ale.

For all of these historic structures, the long process of recovery and rehabilitating and revitalizing will soon get under way.

"I'm hopeful," Stevenson said. "I think there will be enough left from different areas that all these buildings can be put back into use. We can't just write them off."

For every brick or arch or cornice lost to the rumbling of the quake, there is a memory to be replaced. Putting it back together is more than just a simple construction job.

"If we lose them," Stevenson said, "I think this would be a different kind of town."

The Olympian Copyright 2000

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