Two Exciting Olympia Tours

Hello, Pretty Gritty Tours is pleased to announce two exciting Olympia tours!

Local historian, author (Haunted Puget Sound, Pacific Northwest Legends and Lore, Spirits Along the Columbia River, Monsters and Miracles, Haunted Graveyard of the Pacific, and two upcoming 2026 books), professor, public speaker, media presence, and tour guide Ira Wesley Kitmacher will be your storyteller and guide for both.

Go to https://prettygrittytours.com/olympia-tours.html for more information and to purchase tickets for each tour.

Olympia History & Haunted Tour

Join the popular and fascinating history and haunted walking tour of historic downtown Olympia! Learn things you never knew about Washington’s long-time capital!

Attendees wukk meet at Percival Landing in between the Olympia Oyster House (320 4th Avenue W) and the iconic "Kissing Statue," by the binoculars on 4th Avenue W.

We then embark onto the streets of historic Olympia, exploring the city’s dark and haunted past and present. If you love history, ghost stories, true crime, and folklore, then this walking tour is for you. Tour duration 6:30-8 p.m. (beginning in September).

This tour explores the legends behind the region’s supernatural reputation and city’s founding including the Oregon Trail, mosquito fleet, shipwrecks, shanghaiing, ghosts, cryptids, murders, and other strange tales.

This is an entirely outdoor walking tour, please dress for weather and wear comfortable shoes.

Boos, Brews & The Roaring 20s

Travel back in time 100 years to the 1920s, when Olympia was young and wild.

The uninhibited “roaring 20s,” between World Wars I and II, featured brothels, gambling houses, speakeasies, silent and horror movies, vaudeville, nightclubs, alcohol raids (Prohibition was the law), greater liberties for women, new technologies, and Jazz!

You could get virtually anything you wanted if you knew where the secret door was and the password! America had just overcome the “Spanish Flu” and won World War I; the resulting millions of deaths fueled renewed interest in spiritualism and many reported hauntings! We also faced great challenges—organized crime, the Great Depression, and others.

Attendees will meet outside the Olympia Ballroom and El Sitio restaurant (116 Legion Way SE). They willl view and discuss several of Olympia’s 1920s-era buildings from the outside.

They willl then move to the 1920s-themed Filibuster Cocktail Bar & Lounge (in the Security Building) at 404 Washington Street SE in their Depression-era walk-in bank vault!

Alcohol and food will be available for purchase (not included in the ticket price). Only those 21 years old and older may participate. Tour duration 6:30-8 p.m. (beginning in September).

This is a partially outside walking tour, please dress for weather and wear comfortable shoes.