The original pioneer dock on this site, torn down and replaced many times, was built in 1860 by Massachusetts native Sam Percival. In an age when overland travel meant struggling through dense virgin forest, waterways were the main transportation routes of the Northwest frontier. Percival's dock was the center of a flourishing steamboat trade that carried cargo, mail and passengers up and down Puget Sound.

In 1877 "Captain Sam" turned over management of his wharf to his 16-year-old son, John C. Percival, who would maintain a dockside office there for nearly 70 years. When electric streetcar service arrived in the 1890s, a spur of tracks was laid to the dock to serve steamships passengers. The famous Olympia Brewing Company retained its own fleet of streetcars for carrying beer barrels down to the ships that sailed from Percival's dock. Steamers remained an important form of local transportation up into the 1920s, when highways eclipsed them at last.

Today a public boardwalk called Percival Landing Park stands on the site of the old Percival family dock. Built by the City of Olympia in 1977, it offers fabulous harbor views, extensive public artwork and historical markers that detail the city's maritime past.

Percival Landing is located along Water Street on the shore of Budd Inlet. It is listed on the Olympia Heritage Register and is open to the public.

Percival Landing. Olympia Heritage Commission photo.

View of Percival Dock, ca. 1910. Asahel Curtis Photograph, Neg. No. 19976 Washington State Historical Society.