The Thurston Regional Planning Council has a great site jam packed with historical information, including this clickable map of downtown.

Next, run parcel searches through the Thurston Geodata Center .

By the time you are done, you will know where you are, where you were, where they were, what sort of soil those locations have, and lots more.

Must be mushroom time. It's November, raining, and a whole crop of young folks walking slowly across grassy fields, with their heads down as they scan the earth, has arisen once again. Happens every year round this time in my neighborhood.

In an effort to do my part in preventing another 'shroom hunter poisoning, I tracked down what the Washington Poison Center has to say on the general subject of poisonous mushrooms. Hunter, beware.

The Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission has put out an excellent State of Our Watersheds 2004. Free CD or DVD available.

WRIA (Watershed Resource Inventory Area) 13 covers the Deschutes River Basin.

Kudos to everyone involved in putting this report together.

Here is an essay on early efforts to ban cigarettes in Washington. Includes an amusing story about a Republican Senator Orville A. Tucker of Seattle. He worked hard to ban cigarettes, while enjoying his own cigars, in a meeting here in Olympia he caused a minor fire while trying to light his smoke. He ignited a window curtain in an Olympia hotel room. (Anyone happen to know what Olympia hotel?)

One of the paintings in the Sylvester's Window series inspired me to seek info on the Hunger March of 1933. Found a good essay on the subject.

I especially like this passage:

When the marchers demonstrated that they were peaceful, Olympia businessmen opened a number of vacant stores for dormitories and rooms "in one of the cheaper hotels" (Newell, 369) for women and children. A volunteer group offered beans and coffee in a soup kitchen, but many of the marchers became ill. A sign was added to the march, "TO HELL WITH OLYMPIA BEANS!" (Newell, 369).

Also, on the History of Thurston County Sheriff's Office page , there is this additional bit:

"Due to hunger marches by people of the Depression era, Sheriff Havens had to delegate longshoremen to control the crowds at both the State Capital and the kitchen at St. Peter Hospital."

From The Olympian:

OLYMPIA -- Six days after the U.S. Postal Service announced that it would transfer jobs from Olympia to Tacoma and possibly eliminate Olympia's postmark, it's unclear what will happen.

Though a Postal Service spokesman said Tuesday that the changes would be made, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who is looking into the matter, has been assured that Olympia will keep its postmark.

Meanwhile, a postal union official has called on the Postal Service to drop its plans.

Sylvester's Window, a series of paintings now on display at the downtown Olympia Timberland library, is quite worth viewing. The paintings are also viewable online through an Olympian site.

The Olympian has an excellent story on the paintings, "Art through the ages."