Long before the seat of territorial government was established upon these shores, the diminutive native oyster, known to science as Ostrea lurida, sustained the Indigenous Squaxin and neighboring South Puget Sound tribes for uncounted generations.
As local historians detailed during a retrospective hosted by the Olympia Historical Society on Sept. 26, the chronicle of this famed bivalve is a grand saga of frontier commerce, political maneuvering, and ultimate ecological reckoning.
Though popular lore often imagines that the city derived its name from the succulent shellfish, historical records demonstrate that the reverse occurred: The oyster assumed the title of the municipality as commercial trade expanded.
While rival centers such as Seattle and Tacoma commanded greater shipping traffic and larger domestic markets, Olympia secured the mollusk's namesake through enterprising promotion.
In the early days of commercial extraction, pioneer oystermen faced considerable difficulty introducing the small, coppery bivalve beyond Puget Sound.
Pioneer grower Joseph Gale recorded in historical accounts how early shippers overcame initial market resistance in California.
“We sent 50 boxes to San Francisco and found nobody knew anything about them,” Gale recounted in early industry records. “At first they wouldn't sell. Then we hired men to go into restaurants and call for Olympia Oysters and thus worked up a field for them.”
The moniker became forever tied to state history during the spirited late-19th-century campaign to designate Washington's permanent state capital. Seeking to stave off rival bids from across the Sound, Olympia delegates traveled to public assemblies throughout Eastern Washington equipped with political arguments and ample provisions of native shellfish cooked into Captain Woodbury J. Doane's celebrated pan-roasts.
Former Mayor Earl N. Steele documented the efficacy of these grand “oyster feeds” in his historical accounts.
“Their arguments about why the Capital should remain in Olympia were many and forcefully stated, but the clinching argument was the oyster dinner following the meeting,” Steele wrote.
“They created a warmth and friendly spirit and the oysters were so well liked that much publicity was given ... Olympia won the election, and the oyster dinners were given the credit.”
Journalists of the era subsequently christened the creature Olympia's “succulent lobbyist,” cementing the bond between the city's civic destiny and its native shellfish.
Prior to American settlement, the Squaxin and T'Peeksin peoples, mostly women, gathered the oyster, known in native dialects as “Kloch Kloch,” from the shallow mudflats of Budd, Totten, and Eld Inlets.
Following the establishment of commercial firms such as the Olympia Oyster Company in 1878, intense harvesting and industrial pollution threatened the species with ruin.
Speaker and anthropologist Llyn De Danaan said, “Native women and Squaxin families were among the very first to establish official land claims on Oyster Bay, exercising their ancestral rights to cultivate and protect these tidelands.”
To sustain the regional trade, growers introduced the larger Pacific oyster from Japan during the 1920s. Today, collaborative restoration initiatives led by South Sound tribes, state authorities, and long-standing enterprises like Chelsea Farms have fostered a gradual revival for Ostrea lurida.
Presentation speakers, including historian Russell Holter and anthropologist Llyn De Danaan, underscored that protecting this native species remains essential to preserving the region's living heritage.
“Oyster farming is a renewable resource, and the Olympia oyster is truly unique, it is the only oyster that broods its young inside its shell and can live for up to 50 years,” said Holter.
