David Scherer Water
By David Scherer Water
No one physically influenced Olympia more than Edmund Sylvester. After taking his dead partner’s land grant, he platted the city and named the streets.
But P.H. Carlyon took it a step further. He created 29 city blocks from the mud he dredged out of Budd Bay. Before this, big boats had to ferry cargo in smaller ones. That’s a story.
Percival
It was 1860. Since there weren’t any big civil wars starting, Sam Percival decided it was the right time to fight the tides. He was frustrated because only smaller ships could unload at the port, and only for a few hours at the highest part of high tide. Larger ships couldn’t reach the port at all. Instead of dealing with a narrow tide window, most everyone brought stuff ashore in row boats.
Percival started his war on the tides by naming Olympia’s small wooden pier for himself. Soon after, he ordered his band of Chinese quasi-slaves to build it bigger. The pier was destroyed by a flood. That was when Percival lost his grip on reality and screamed the now famous Olympia catch phrase, “It’s the water!”
Like every rich idiot, Percival couldn’t tell where he ended and the things named for him began. He was convinced that both he and his pier were too small. He couldn’t change his body. So, he rebuilt his dock. Even when the landing reached 4,792 feet into the deepest waters of the harbor, he ordered that it be extended further.
During the Commodore-Captain-Admiral-Major’s career, the port went from being able to dock the largest vessels in Puget Sound to being able to handle an aircraft carrier. I think Percival imagined Olympia as some kind of new New Amsterdam where mile-long boats would be dotting the sound. Ships requiring his pier would never exist. During an earthquake — after years of being gnawed at by teredo worms — his second pier collapsed.
Percival’s corpse can be heard thrashing in its coffin every time the city reduces his landing for big boats to more of a park for small children. Today, Percival Landing is a pressure-treated timber-planked boardwalk and home to a 40-foot manual centrifuge for spinning kids, coin operated showers that take debit cards, a 12-foot pregnant obelisk, a time travel tidal pool replica made of granite that includes a frightening sign describing the dangers of the fountain’s toxic water, and on the northeast end you’ll find dozens of locked restrooms.
It’s not known if there are toilets or sinks inside. The Port of Olympia claims key codes are available for day-use marina slip users. Are there any day-use marina slips? I don’t see any. I just need to take a leak.
If you visit Percival Landing at night beware of the newly-installed recessed ground-level LED spotlights. They’re blinding.
Rogers
Washington’s third governor was a big reformer. Rogers was Olympia’s first elected left-leaning progressive. His signature achievement was getting barefoot schoolboys to wear shoes. That’s a history joke. All kidding aside, Rogers did a lot of real things that helped people.
Sadly, he couldn’t see how fat cat millionaires like the ones who bankrolled his campaign were at the heart of the world’s economic troubles. He blamed everything on one tiny ethnic minority. You’ll never guess which one.
He died in 1901 before he realized the rich had duped him — a group that he so famously explained could take care of themselves.
Wohleb
Many of Olympia’s older buildings have similar unique flourishes that include terra cotta Spanish roofs and stucco walls set with occasional glazed accent tiles. Architecturally, this isn’t really anything to write home about, but the story of the guy who conned his way into designing it all is.
For three years, Joseph Wohleb had been living in his parents’ basement in Vallejo, working as a carpenter’s assistant and hating life. Looking over the shoulder of an architect visiting his job site one day, Wohleb figured he could do that too. He left home and dropped anchor in Olympia.
On April 12, 1911, The Daily Olympian wrote of his arrival, “J.H. Wohleb, architect from California, arrived Wednesday. Mr. Wohleb has been making specialty residence, being familiar with the various bungalow styles so popular in California.”
But young Wohleb only self-identified as an architect. He had no license, let alone experience. He built a few houses. He told everyone they were fancy, and by some miracle they didn’t fall over. Over the next few years, he was commissioned to do some buildings. It wasn’t long before he was the most sought-after architect in the region and his style became ubiquitous.
Wohleb’s big break came in 1920. He won the contract to build the Lord Mansion (now an event space for Evergreen). Over the next three decades, Wohleb did The Spar, several schools, including Lincoln and Avanti, Capital Theater, the county courthouse, and The Martin.
Wohleb’s architecture was sound and a lot of it remains standing. His firm was taken over by his son, changed names a few times, and still exists today.
Bank robbers
Olympia’s overall low crime rates stand in contrast to the city’s early history of lawlessness. The first government of the territory had to crudely force civility onto the frontier town with the guns of its pioneer militias. Later, the capitol and the surrounding buildings were designed with excessive marble and intimidating architecture as a push-back against the Wild West wildness that tormented the city well into the 20th century.
Olympia never had a high bank robbery rate, but because of a few infamous bank robbers, there’s a common misconception otherwise.
In between bank heists, Eric “The Pizza Time Bandit” Collier got his name robbing the area’s Pizza Time restaurants.
Once convicted, Olympia bank robber Mitchell Rupe famously gained hundreds of pounds in jail, eventually exceeding the scale limit (425), a weight that initially prolonged his life. Rupe had been given the death sentence, but a judge overturned it because of his new weight. Hanging would have resulted in decapitation — considered cruel and unusual punishment.
Before alternate execution arrangements could be agreed to, Rupe died in prison of liver disease related to his sudden weight gain.
America’s most prolific bank robber, The Hollywood Bandit (aka Scott Scurlock), was a strikingly handsome Evergreen student. Between 1992 and 1996, wearing elaborate costumes, Scurlock stole $2.3 million dollars. He broke and still holds the U.S. record for the longest sequential string of successful bank robberies: 17.
Scurlock spent some of his fortune building an elaborate three-story treehouse at his 20-acre west Olympia compound, which included an underground Lex Luthor bunker. A few days after his 18th bank robbery, Scurlock shot himself in the head during a standoff with police following a hampered getaway snarled by Seattle area traffic.
These are only a few of our weirdos. I’ll be writing about others soon. There are a lot. This may include you.
David Scherer Water explores absurdity in local culture through the lens of comedic nonfiction. He is the author of a history book and this column. Both have the same title. Discover more of his work here.
riamapson
Love reading anything by David. I always get a laugh and learn something interesting!
Wednesday, June 11 Report this
Porter
Thank you Mr. Water.
Wednesday, June 11 Report this
Snevets
Thursday, June 12 Report this
Boatyarddog
Crazy History!
Thursday, June 12 Report this
USA_Ronin
But why does Olympia have to lock all those restrooms?
Oh, right, right... "progressive" Olympia's junkies. Got it.
Saturday, June 14 Report this