Capitol Lake

History

Prior to American settlement, the tidal basin at the southern tip of Budd Inlet was a productive shellfish gathering area for native peoples. The area was of specific value to the Squaxin Island Tribe who inhabited the original estuary for millennium. After settlement in the mid-19th century, the basin received much of the wastewater and other effluent outflow from "uptown" Olympia. In the 1890s the Northern Pacific Railroad located a station and switching yard on the eastern shore of the basin.

The first proposal for creating Capitol Lake came when Leopold Schmidt of the Olympia Brewing Company proposed in 1895 to " mak(e) a fresh water lake of it by building a dam and locks near the Westside (Olympia) bridge."

In 1911, the State Capitol Commission held a nationwide competition for the design of the State Capitol Campus. The winning architects, Wilder and White, submitted a revolutionary City Beautiful movement and American Renaissance plan which included creating a body of water to reflect the Capitol Group of buildings on the bluff by installing a tidelock at the mouth of the Deschutes River.

A more limited lake was also part of the original landscape design by John Olmsted to reflect the Washington State Capitol building on Puget Sound. The lake as envisioned by Olmsted would have been created with a north to south running berm, as opposed to an east to west running dam.

In 1915, the State Capitol Commission rejected a plan by former Olympia Mayor and state legislator P.H. Carlyon to replace Olympia's bridge to the westside with a dam and locks. That plan would have created a lake very much like the present Capitol Lake. Because of opposition from upriver Tumwater businesses, such as the Olympia Brewing Company and the Olympia Power and Light Company, that plan was not approved.

The Capitol Group of buildings was constructed over several years from 1913 to 1940, and the State Capitol Committee then turned to the task of creating the Wilder and White reflecting Capitol Lake. In 1937, the state began purchasing the privately owned tidelands around the Capitol Campus. In 1941, opposition from Tumwater was finally overcome during a special town meeting. In 1947, due in large part by intense lobbying by Thurston County legislators, the state legislature approved funding for the construction of the dam in order to create Capitol Lake.

A shantytown known as "Little Hollywood" developed along the shores of the Deschutes River, at the foot of the Capitol Campus. The people living in the shanties dumped raw human waste and trash directly into the Deschutes River. This became an eyesore (July 7, 1948, The Daily Olympian) and probably a health hazard. Damming the Deschutes River destroyed the estuary, but also prevented the urban blight of the shantytown from recurring.

Capitol Lake was created in 1951 when the dam, known as the Fifth Avenue Dam, was completed consistent with the Wilder and White plan. This allowed for the retention of the outflow from the Deschutes River to cover the tide flats.

Due to an increase in bacterial levels, swimming in the lake was banned beginning in the 1980s. In the 1990s and 2000s, the North Capitol Campus Heritage Park was created with the Arc of Statehood from the Western Washington Inlet to the Eastern Washington Butte along the eastern edge of Capitol Lake and the North Campus trail and Law Enforcement Memorial with views across Capitol Lake to the borrowed landscapes of Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains.

The February 2001 Nisqually earthquake did considerable damage to the 4th Avenue Bridge just north of the lake, as well as to the Deschutes Parkway on the west side of the lake.