In the News
Arts and Heritage Alliance president Cheryl Selby gives a pre-opening tour of the organization’s new museum which is slated to open the weekend of June 28 at the corner of State Avenue and Columbia Street Northwest In downtown Olympia. By Steve Bloom
Olympia is getting its first history museum. What will be on display opening weekend?
A downtown storefront that used to house Bittersweet Chocolates until it closed at the end of 2024 will now be home to the city’s first-ever museum dedicated to Olympia’s arts, culture and history. Former Mayor Cheryl Selby is the incoming president of the Olympia Arts & Heritage Alliance, the nonprofit behind the Olympia AHA Museum at 203 Columbia St. NW. She said they’re still finding chocolate dust in hard-to-reach places, as they just got the keys to the space in May to set up for a June 28 grand opening. However, she said it’s taken eight years of planning and organizing to get to where the museum is today.
'The Yard Bird at Sea Mart' by Mimi Williams. Linoleum block print on Masa printmaking paper.
All imagery courtesy of the museum
The Olympia Arts & Heritage Alliance Museum is a First of Its Kind
The opening of the Olympia Arts & Heritage Alliance Museum has been a long time coming: The eponymous alliance was formed in 2018 for the specific purpose of securing a museum space for its history-spotlighting efforts. After nearly a decade, that space is being unveiled to the public on June 28 on Columbia Street in a spot that was once home to a chocolate shop.
“There’s been a long-time effort in Olympia to create a history museum downtown, and a separate effort to create an art center in downtown Olympia. Neither one of those was really able to get traction, and this is decades in the making,” the alliance’s secretary, Kris Tucker, said recently of the organization’s formation and its subsequent pursuit of a home for a museum. “In 2018, some history folks — I have an arts background — some city folks, we got together and we said, ‘Let’s work together.’”
The Olympia Arts & Heritage Alliance Museum is located at 203 Columbia St. NW.
Olympia Arts & Heritage Alliance Museum to open this weekend
The Olympia Arts & Heritage Alliance Museum will host a grand opening on Saturday, June 28, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The event, which is free and open to the public, will come after a ribbon cutting ceremony on Friday, June 27, at 3:30 p.m.
Opening exhibits include Button Blankets from the Squaxin Island Tribe, an exhibit of new works by local artists, numerous historical exhibits, and a detailed scale model of a historic tugboat.