Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1889-09-27
Olympia.
lSt. Paul Pioneer Press.

DOaIulilS one Vi lne elegant steam
ers plying on the upper Sound from
Tacoma, on Saturday morning last,
landed at Olympia and saw for the first
time the Capital city of Washington
Territory, and, with the proclivity
born in me, when l see good thing
to wish everyone else to enjoy it with
me, i solicited the medium of the
Pioneer-Press, to say to almost every
body, when you visit the Sound coun-
try don't omit seeing this quaint old
city-dreamy, shady, beautiful Olym-
pia-the nymph of Puget Sound.
Olympia is not business center.
1t would seem sacrilegious to invade
her environments with manufacture
and commerce, to soil her skirts with
the CRIME of labor, to disturb her
peaceful rest with the clangor of ma
chinery, or the rush and rustic of bus
iness. She is rather fitted for the re-
tirement of poets, haven of romance,
a charming spot in which to live, love
and revel in the realms of poetry.
But hear the reader pleading for a
more literal physical description of the
city which has thus captivated my
fancy. Well, here it is: Referring to
the map you will find Budd's Inlet the
most southern extremity of Puget
Sound; at the southern extremity of
this Inlet you note Olympia, and so it
lies. The Inlet terminates in beau
tiful. sheltered bay about mile in di-
ameter, surrounded on three sides bv
the sloping hills stretching away in a
graceful curve, a vast natural amphi-
theater, from the ebb and flow of this
arm OF grand old ocean, towards the
mountains, seeming to merge into the
rugged sides of the distant Cascades,
with st. Helen's and old Tacoma in
the background and the Olympics
standing guard DER the entrance to
the bay. This amphitheater, COM
manding, as it does, an unobstructed
view of this charming, everlasting
panorama, is Olympia, a city of five
thousand souls, nestled in overhanging
fruit and ornamental shade trees, and
studded with luxuriant vineyards and
grassy glades and terraces, cozy hooks
and rose embOwered arbors, one of
which latter we might almost imagine
to have been the scene of the tempta-
ton of Hassen Ben Kahled.
1t does not seem possible that the
Constitutional Convention, so recently
in session here, could have seriously
contemplated any change in the loca-
ton of the Capital of the new State
80 soon to be born, from the beautiful
spot so geocentric as it were, so APP
propriate in every appointment, even
to its soft, oriental name, as Olympia,
when it enacted the provisions for
taking a vote of the people on this
question, which it would seem can
only result in fixing it here for all
time. 1t would distort every sense of
propriety beside being gross outrage
upon Nature, who has been so courte-
Gus in her gifts, seemingly to this end,
to go carting the Capital away from
here to boom" some real estate spec
ulator's town lots in another city.
Legislatures could never enact mis-
chievOus or wicked laws in such a
place as Olympia, calculated as it is to
bring out mems best impulses and
promote their better natures. How
fitting q seat of Government for the
namesake of the admired nations,
the honored of ages! As the name of
Washington has gone down to history
a synonym for greatness and will ever
be cherished in the hearts of his
countrymen, SO the State of Washing
ton ought to tower beside her snow
capped mountains, above all her sister
States, in wise and well ordained leg
lslation under the enobling influences
OF the abundant munificence of the
God OF nature here bestowed. And as
Washington is to be the first State in
the Union, and, we hope, to extend
equal rights to both sexes, where could
be found a more fitting site for the
first halls of legislation to welcome
the genius of the fair sex?
Again / say, be sure to visit Olympia.
Sincerely,