A family of Swedish immigrants left their enduring mark on many of Olympian's older residential neighborhoods. In 1922 the enterprising Anderson brothers launched their highly successful line of Tumwater Ready Cut Homes. Each house they sold through the catalog of the Tumwater Lumber Mills came as an all-inclusive kit of pre-cut and coded pieces. Doors, windows, cabinets, wainscoting, paint - sometimes even fireplaces - came with the kit as well. The whole process was so simple, the Anderson brothers boasted, that anyone could hammer together a Ready Cut Home in a matter of days. And they were affordable, too. According to the firm's 1922 catalog, a five-room house with lot could be built for no more than $4,000.

Though Tumwater kits were marketed both nationally and abroad, they found plenty of eager buyers in the company's own backyard. More than 500 Ready Cut Homes were built in and around Olympia during the 1920s and '30s, many in the Craftsman bungalow, Colonial Revival or English Revival styles.

A row of five (mostly) Dutch Colonial homes, built as demonstration models for customers to view, can be seen on Columbia Street in the South Capitol Neighborhood. Later demonstration rows of English Revival cottages stand on both Rogers and Percival streets on Olympia's west side.

Tumwater Lumber Mills Kit House. Olympia Heritage Commission photo.

A page from the Tumwater Lumber Mills "Ready Cut Homes" Catalogue, Volume Number Two. A model home built from this floor plan can be seen in the South Capitol neighborhood at 1532 Columbia Street SW, one in a row of five Tumwater Lumber Mills pre-cut homes.