The Town That 'Resorted to Flat-Boats'
A skeptical writer from Walla Walla mocked Olympia’s tide-swept landscape, prompting a sharp, defensive retort from the local editor.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Olympia is situated at the head of the Sound. The town has an extremely antiquated, not to say dilapidated and shabby appearance. The surface of the ground is quite uneven, there being here and there a ravine, a hillock, and a hollow. A portion of the town is set upon stilts to escape the high tide, and when the tide is up, I am told the inhabitants resort to flat-boats and skiffs. One solitary wharf leads out two or three hundred yards into the Sound, which the steamer and small craft are obliged to approach when the tide is in. The Capital building is about three-quarters of a mile from town, located in the woods, affording 'spouting' members the opportunity to draw inspiration from the tall firs, rather than from too frequent imbibifications. It is a horrible long walk, up hill at that.
[Editor's response:] The gentleman has resided much in the interior where wharves are uncommon. The 'stilts' are called piles here, and are used for the same purpose that stilts are in Portland, but they answer our purpose much better. This assertion about flat-boats puts us in mind of a story generally told the 'web-footed' tribe when they betray their astonishment on seeing watercraft lying high and dry on the beach. The first question is, 'How in tarnation did them boats git eout of the branch?' The general answer is, 'Blowed out!' We can but think that somebody has been 'blowing' while the correspondent was about.
“The first question naturally is, 'Heow in tarnation did them boats git eout of the branch?' The general answer is, 'Blowed out!'”
Early Olympia boosters were fiercely sensitive about the town's geography, particularly the tide flats that defined the downtown core. Today, those same areas are fully reclaimed land, masking the 'stilts' and mudflats that once necessitated a boat-bound lifestyle.
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