At Priest Point Park, just two miles from downtown Olympia, you can still get a glimpse of what the land looked like before outside settlers came. Dark green woods, dripping with moss, still encircle a hidden cove and blanket the banks of Budd Inlet as they have for thousands of years. Along the park's unspoiled beaches, American Indian people once gathered for potlatch feasts.

A group of French Catholic missionaries came to Olympia early and established an outpost at Priest Point in 1848. Their mission apparently consisted of two or three simple buildings, including a classroom or chapel, along with an orchard and garden. When the mission was closed in 1860, its buildings fell into disrepair and eventually disappeared.

In 1905, when plans for a housing development on the old mission site fell through, the City of Olympia bought 240 forested acres for $1,200 and created Priest Point Park. Work parties of volunteer citizens labored throughout the summer clearing trails, installing landscaping and re-erecting an elaborate Swiss-style chalet donated by Leopold Schmidt of the Olympia Brewery. The two-story structure, which had served as the brewery's pavilion at the 1903-04 Lewis and Clark Exposition in Portland, Oregon, remained a fixture at Priest Point Park until it was torn down in the early 1950s.

Well-maintained trails thread through the park on both sides of East Bay Drive. Interpretive markers, including a panel devoted to traditional Indian use of the site, can be found on the Ellis Cove Trail.

Priest Point Park is located north of downtown on East Bay Drive. It is listed on the Olympia Heritage Register and is open to the public.

Priest Point Park. Olympia Heritage Commission photo.

A watercolor of the Indian Boys School at Priest Point painted from memory by Helen Parker McMicken, who lived with her family near the Oblate Mission as a young girl. Special Collection Divisions, University of Washington Libraries.