The Church That Was Built by Hand
A pioneer minister recalls the grit and community labor required to build Olympia's first Unitarian church during the city's early boom and bust cycles.
The history of the Unitarian movement in Olympia leaves no room for discouragement. When the church was first organized, the town was booming. We all believed Olympia would become the great metropolis of the Sound. But then the blow fell, and Olympia was left out in the cold. During those struggling years, many of our best supporters were forced to leave. Nevertheless, we went forward. I remember a council of friends at the house of Dr. Waughop. A resolution was proposed: 'Resolved, that we will build a Unitarian hall if we can.' Our hostess, seeing that an 'if' made it no resolution at all, said: 'I now move that we resolve that we can build a Unitarian hall if we will.' The church was built; the minister was the architect, and Dr. Waughop and I made the pews ourselves. When we were adding the finishing touches, the doctor sadly said: 'Now that we have got our church done, we can see that we ought to have built it at some other place.' I replied: 'No; if it is only a monument standing in a dead city, it is worth all it cost to mark the place where the Unitarian church of Washington had its origin.'
“I now move that we resolve that we can build a Unitarian hall if we will.”
This story captures the persistent 'booster' spirit of 19th-century Olympia, where residents literally built their own civic infrastructure when capital fled. It mirrors the modern-day struggle of local organizations trying to maintain community spaces in an increasingly expensive and volatile real estate market.
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