The Woman's Club of Olympia is arguably the oldest Woman's Club in the West. It was formed in 1883 when a group of nine local women met in the home of Clara and Edmund Sylvester for the purpose of mutual improvement. Original club members included Pamela Case Hale, first woman superintendent of Thurston County schools, and schoolteacher Janet Moore. In the beginning club members focused on literature, travel, music and education. Later they expanded their interests to issues of women's and children's rights.

When the club's rented quarters caught fire in the early years of this century, the group set about building its own clubhouse on the burned-out site. Their new meetinghouse, built circa 1908, was specifically meant to blend in with what was then a residential neighborhood. Its dignified design is primarily Colonial Revival with certain decorative elements-three-part windows, a low-slung shape, shingle siding upstairs and clapboard siding down-of the emerging Craftsman style.

The Woman's Club was instrumental in establishing a public library in Olympia. In 1896 the club began acquiring and lending out books, eventually turning over its 900-volume collection to the City in 1909. It was largely through the efforts of club member Janet Moore that Olympia received a grant from industrialist Andrew Carnegie to build its first real library building in 1914.

The Woman's Club is located at the southeast corner of Washington Street and 10th Avenue. It is listed on both the National and Washington State Registers of Historic Places, as well as on the Olympia Heritage Register. The meetinghouse is still owned and used by the Woman's Club of Olympia and is not open to the public, except during special events.

Woman's Club of Olympia Clubhouse. Olympia Heritage Commission photo.

Woman's Club of Olympia Clubhouse. Jeffers Studio photo from the Washington State Capital Museum, Washington State Historical Society.