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Thurston County, Washington

Coordinates: 46°56′N 122°50′W / 46.93°N 122.83°W / 46.93; -122.83
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Thurston County
County
Former Thurston County Courthouse
Former Thurston County Courthouse
Official logo of Thurston County
Logo
Map of Washington highlighting Thurston County
Location within the U.S. state of Washington
Map of the United States highlighting Washington
Washington's location within the U.S.
Coordinates: 46°56′N 122°50′W / 46.93°N 122.83°W / 46.93; -122.83
Country United States
State Washington
FoundedJanuary 12, 1852
Named forSamuel Thurston
SeatOlympia
Largest cityLacey
Area
 • Total774 sq mi (2,000 km2)
 • Land722 sq mi (1,870 km2)
 • Water52 sq mi (130 km2)  6.7%
Population
 (2020)[1]
 • Total294,793
 • Estimate 
(2023)[1]
299,003 Increase
 • Density408/sq mi (158/km2)
Time zoneUTC−8 (Pacific)
 • Summer (DST)UTC−7 (PDT)
Congressional districts3rd, 10th
Websitethurstoncountywa.gov

Thurston County is a county located in the U.S. state of Washington. As of the 2020 census, its population was 294,793.[1] The county seat and largest city is Olympia,[2] the state capital.

Thurston County was created out of Lewis County by the government of Oregon Territory on January 12, 1852. At that time, it covered all of the Puget Sound region and the Olympic Peninsula. On December 22 of the same year, Pierce, King, Island, and Jefferson counties were split off from Thurston County.[3][4] It is named after Samuel R. Thurston, the Oregon Territory's first delegate to Congress.[5]

Thurston County comprises the Olympia–Tumwater, WA Metropolitan Statistical Area and is included in the Seattle–Tacoma, WA Combined Statistical Area.

History

[edit]

The southern end of Puget Sound is the homeland of several indigenous Coast Salish groups, including the Nisqually, Squaxin, and Upper Chehalis.[6] Archeological remains at Tumwater Falls date back to 2,500 to 3,000 years before present; the area around the falls included a settlement with several longhouses. The first European exhibition to the southern Puget Sound was conducted by Peter Puget and Joseph Whidbey on the British-led Vancouver Expedition in May 1792. The Hudson's Bay Company established a trading post at Fort Nisqually in 1833 on the east side of the Nisqually Delta while the Oregon Country was under joint administration by the British and American governments.[7] Permanent European (and later American) settlement of modern-day Thurston County began with the arrival of a pioneer party led by Michael Simmons and George Bush in 1845. Several families settled near Tumwater Falls at a site they named "New Market", which became the first European settlement in Western Washington.[7]

The area north of the Columbia River was originally under the jurisdiction of the Vancouver District (later renamed Clark County) until 1845, when Lewis County was created from the area west of the Cowlitz River. The entire region was ceded to the United States with the signing of the Oregon Treaty in 1846 and organized into Oregon Territory two years later.[8] A petition by 54 residents of Olympia and surrounding communities was submitted to the Oregon Territorial Legislature in December 1851 to create a new county from Lewis County. The proposed name of Simmons County, named for Michael Simmons, was changed to Thurston County by the legislature at the suggestion of Asa Lovejoy to honor Samuel Thurston, the first delegate to the U.S. Congress from Oregon Territory.[8] Thurston himself had never visited the area.[9]

Thurston County was created on January 12, 1852, by the Oregon Territorial Legislature and Olympia was designated as its seat.[8] It included the entire Olympic Peninsula and Puget Sound region up to the northern border with British North America and went as far east as the Cascade Mountains.[7] On December 22, the northern areas of Thurston County were divided to form Island, Jefferson, King, and Pierce counties.[8] A portion of the county south of the Chehalis River was ceded to Lewis County in February 1853, a month before Washington Territory was created with its capital in Olympia.[7][10] Sawamish County (now Mason County) was created in March 1854 from the northwestern portions of Thurston County and Chehalis County (now Grays Harbor County) was established a month later from the remaining western half of Thurston County. Several exchanges of land between Thurston and neighboring counties were made during the 1860s and settled into the modern boundaries by 1873.[8][10] An attempt to move the county seat from Olympia to Tumwater or West Olympia was defeated by voters in 1861.[8]

Olympia was retained as capital of Washington after it was granted statehood in 1889; the city did not win a majority in the first referendum after Ellensburg and North Yakima, but defeated both in a second vote. Local residents built a branch line to connect with the Northern Pacific Railroad and approved a harbor-dredging operation to promote Olympia as a trade hub as the area fell behind Seattle and Tacoma in population growth.[7] The 150-foot (46 m) Thurston County Courthouse was completed in 1892 and was purchased by the state government in 1901 for use as the state capitol building to replace a temporary wooden structure built in 1856. The modern Washington State Capitol commenced construction in 1923 and was completed in 1928 alongside a campus of government buildings and monuments.[7][11] Thurston County remained predominantly dependent on the logging industry until the state government became the county's largest employment sector in the 1950s. Several state government agencies had attempted to move their offices to Seattle until a 1954 Washington Supreme Court ruling mandated that their headquarters remain in the Olympia area.[7]

The first section of Interstate 5 built in Thurston County was the 6.5-mile (10.5 km) Olympia Freeway, which opened in December 1958 to bypass the city's downtown. Other sections opened over the following decade, extending access through Lacey and Tumwater, where it destroyed portions of the historic downtown;[12] a proposal to build the freeway further away from Olympia was rejected to preserve rural areas.[13][14] The completion of Interstate 5 enabled the growth of bedroom communities around Thurston County, which saw its population rapidly increase from the 1950s to 1970s.[7][12] The first suburban shopping center in the county, the South Sound Center in Lacey, opened in October 1966; it was followed by Lacey's incorporation as a city. The Evergreen State College, a public liberal arts college in western Olympia, opened in 1972.[7]

Geography

[edit]

According to the United States Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 774 square miles (2,000 km2), of which 722 square miles (1,870 km2) is land and 52 square miles (130 km2) (6.7%) is water.[15]

Adjacent counties

[edit]

Major highways

[edit]

Geographic features

[edit]

Major watersheds: Black River, Budd/Deschutes, Chehalis River, Eld Inlet, Henderson Inlet, Nisqually River, Skookumchuck River, Totten Inlet and West Capitol Forest.

National protected areas

[edit]

Ecology and environment

[edit]

The habitat for the Golden Paintbrush (Castilleja levisecta) runs through the county. The plant was placed on the Endangered Species list in 1997 but due to conservation efforts the 12 in (30 cm) tall prairie flower was delisted in 2023.[16]

Wildlife and land preserves in South Thurston County include the Black River Habitat Management Area, the Glacial Heritage Preserve,[17] and the Scatter Creek Wildlife Area.

Demographics

[edit]
Historical population
CensusPop.Note%±
18601,507—
18702,24649.0%
18803,27045.6%
18909,675195.9%
19009,9272.6%
191017,58177.1%
192022,36627.2%
193031,35140.2%
194037,28518.9%
195044,88420.4%
196055,04922.6%
197076,89439.7%
1980124,26461.6%
1990161,23829.8%
2000207,35528.6%
2010252,26421.7%
2020294,79316.9%
2023 (est.)299,003[18]1.4%
U.S. Decennial Census[19]
1790–1960[20] 1900–1990[21]
1990–2000[22] 2010–2020[1]

Thurston County has the sixth-largest population among Washington's counties and is among the fastest-growing in the state. From 2010 to 2020, the county's population became more ethnically diverse, with the number of residents who identify as Hispanic or Latino increasing by 63.2%.[23] The county's largest city is Lacey, which has an estimated population of over 60,000 and surpassed Olympia's population in the early 2020s.[24] The smallest incorporated place in Thurston County is the town of Bucoda, which has 620 residents. Over 145,000 people live in the unincorporated areas of the county, which are primarily concentrated between Olympia and Lacey.[25]

The entire county is designated as part of the Olympia–Lacey–Tumwater Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), which only includes Thurston County. The MSA was among the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the U.S. in the 2010s, with a year-to-year population increase of 2.24 percent.[26] The county also had the highest population of middle class households among metropolitan areas in the U.S. according to a 2024 Pew Research study, which determined that 66 percent of households had adults with an annual income near double the national median household income.[27] Thurston County is also part of the Seattle–Tacoma, WA Combined Statistical Area, which includes most of the Puget Sound region.[28]

2020 census

[edit]

As of the 2020 census, there were 294,793 people, 115,397 households, and 76,717 families living in the county.[29] The population density was 408.0 inhabitants per square mile (157.5/km2). There were 121,438 housing units at an average density of 168.1 inhabitants per square mile (64.9/km2). The racial makeup of the county was 73.2% White, 3.2% African American, 1.5% Native American, 5.9% Asian, 1.1% Pacific Islander, 3.5% from some other races and 11.6% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino people of any race were 9.8% of the population.[30] 20.5% of residents were under the age of 18, 5.1% were under 5 years of age, and 19.3% were 65 and older.

2010 census

[edit]

As of the 2010 census, there were 252,264 people, 100,650 households, and 66,161 families living in the county.[31] The population density was 349.4 inhabitants per square mile (134.9/km2). There were 108,182 housing units at an average density of 149.8 per square mile (57.8/km2).[32] The racial makeup of the county was 82.4% white, 5.2% Asian, 2.7% black or African American, 1.4% American Indian, 0.8% Pacific islander, 2.2% from other races, and 5.3% from two or more races. Those of Hispanic or Latino origin made up 7.1% of the population.[31] In terms of ancestry, 21.2% were German, 13.4% were English, 13.2% were Irish, 5.0% were Norwegian, and 4.7% were American.[33]

Of the 100,650 households, 31.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 49.9% were married couples living together, 11.4% had a female householder with no husband present, 34.3% were non-families, and 25.9% of all households were made up of individuals. The average household size was 2.46 and the average family size was 2.95. The median age was 38.5 years.[31]

The median income for a household in the county was $60,930 and the median income for a family was $71,833. Males had a median income of $53,679 versus $41,248 for females. The per capita income for the county was $29,707. About 7.1% of families and 10.3% of the population were below the poverty line, including 13.0% of those under age 18 and 5.9% of those age 65 or over.[34]

2000 census

[edit]

As of the 2000 census, there were 207,355 people, 81,625 households and 54,933 families living in the county. The population density was 285 people per square mile (110 people/km2). There were 86,652 housing units at an average density of 119 units per square mile (46 units/km2). The racial makeup of the county was 85.66% White, 2.35% Black or African American, 1.52% Native American, 4.41% Asian, 0.52% Pacific Islander, 1.69% from other races, and 3.85% from two or more races. 4.53% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. 17.1% were of German, 10.2% English, 9.8% Irish, 6.9% United States or American and 5.5% Norwegian ancestry.

There were 81,625 households, of which 33.00% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 53.10% were married couples living together, 10.30% had a female householder with no husband present, and 32.70% were non-families. 25.10% of all households were made up of individuals, and 8.00% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.50 and the average family size was 2.99.

Age distribution was 25.30% under the age of 18, 9.30% from 18 to 24, 29.30% from 25 to 44, 24.60% from 45 to 64, and 11.40% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females, there were 96.00 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 92.70 males.

The median household income was $46,975, and the median family income was $55,027. Males had a median income of $40,521 versus $30,368 for females. The per capita income for the county was $22,415. About 5.80% of families and 8.80% of the population were below the poverty line, including 9.80% of those under age 18 and 5.00% of those age 65 or over.

Government

[edit]

Thurston County is governed by a five-member board of county commissioners who are elected to four-year terms from proportional districts. The board of commissioners was enlarged from three members to five members in November 2023 following the approval of a ballot measure to expand the board that passed a year prior.[35] The head of the Thurston County government's administration is the county manager, who is appointed by the board of commissioners. Since 2024, the county manager has been Leonard Hernandez, who was previously the CEO of San Bernardino County, California.[36] Thurston County has used its commissioner–manager form of government since it was formed in 1852.[37] An attempt to adopt a home rule charter with an elected county executive and seven-member county council was rejected by voters in 1979.[38]

The county is split between two U.S. congressional districts, which each elect a member to the United States House of Representatives: the 3rd district, generally south of State Route 507; and the 10th district, which includes the urban areas of Olympia, Lacey, and Tumwater, as well as Yelm.[39] Until the creation of the 10th district following the 2010 U.S. census, Olympia and Lacey were in separate congressional districts.[40] At the state level, Thurston County is part of five legislative districts that each elect a state senator and two state representatives. The 2nd district encompasses the rural southeast of the county; the 19th district includes Grand Mound and the southwest corner of the county; the 20th district includes an area east of Grand Mound; the 22nd district includes Olympia, Lacey, and Tumwater; and the 35th district encompasses western and central Thurston County.[39]

Special districts

[edit]

Special-purpose districts include cemetery, fire, hospital, library, school, and water and sewer districts. Each special district is governed by officials elected by voters within that jurisdiction.

Fire districts

[edit]

Seven fire districts, three city fire departments, and two regional fire authorities provide fire prevention, fire fighting, and emergency medical services. Each fire district is governed by an elected board of commissioners. Most districts have three commissioners. Fire districts receive most of their revenue from property taxes. All of the fire districts and the regional fire authority have volunteer or paid-call firefighters and emergency medical technicians (EMTs).

The City of Olympia is an all-career department. Fire District 3 only allows volunteers to live within the City of Lacey city limits.

Thurston County Fire Districts are:[41]

  • Fire District 1 merged with Fire District 14 in 2002, then merging with Fire District 11 in 2010 to form West Thurston Regional Fire Authority.
  • Fire District 2 merged with Fire District 4 to form S.E. Thurston Fire Authority in 2010.
  • Fire District 3 serves the City of Lacey and surrounding areas.
  • Fire District 4 merged with Fire District 2 to form S.E. Thurston Fire Authority in 2010.
  • Fire District 5 consolidated with Fire District 9, forming McLane – Black Lake Fire Department in 2008, fully merging in 2018.
  • Fire District 6 serves East Olympia.
  • Fire District 7 merged with Fire District 8 in 2015.
  • Fire District 8 serves South Bay, Johnson Point, and North Olympia.
  • Fire District 9 operates as McLane – Black Lake Fire Department.
  • Fire District 10 merged with Fire District 9 in 1976.
  • Fire District 11 merged into Fire District 1 in 2010 to form West Thurston Regional Fire Authority.
  • Fire District 12 merged with Fire District 16 to form South Thurston Fire & EMS in 2017.
  • Fire District 13 serves Steamboat Island, south to Route 8.
  • Fire District 14 merged with Fire District 1 in 2002.
  • Fire District 15 contracted service with the City of Tumwater on January 4, 1967, being annexed into the city of 2016.
  • Fire District 16 merged into Fire District 12 to form South Thurston Fire & EMS in 2017.
  • Fire District 17 serves Bald Hills.

Politics

[edit]

Thurston County leans Democratic. The county has voted for the Democratic presidential candidate since 1988 and the candidates have consistently received majority of the vote in the county.

United States presidential election results for Thurston County, Washington[42][43]
Year Republican Democratic Third party(ies)
No.  % No.  % No.  %
2020 65,277 38.82% 96,608 57.46% 6,249 3.72%
2016 48,624 36.23% 68,798 51.27% 16,769 12.50%
2012 49,287 38.58% 74,037 57.96% 4,416 3.46%
2008 48,366 37.97% 75,882 59.57% 3,142 2.47%
2004 47,992 42.55% 62,650 55.55% 2,147 1.90%
2000 39,924 40.98% 50,467 51.80% 7,031 7.22%
1996 29,835 34.18% 45,522 52.16% 11,923 13.66%
1992 25,643 30.32% 38,293 45.28% 20,633 24.40%
1988 31,980 47.78% 33,860 50.59% 1,090 1.63%
1984 34,442 55.51% 26,840 43.26% 763 1.23%
1980 26,369 48.10% 20,508 37.41% 7,946 14.49%
1976 21,000 47.67% 21,247 48.23% 1,809 4.11%
1972 22,297 57.48% 14,596 37.63% 1,899 4.90%
1968 13,742 45.06% 14,228 46.65% 2,529 8.29%
1964 9,351 34.61% 17,578 65.05% 92 0.34%
1960 13,921 54.37% 11,620 45.38% 65 0.25%
1956 14,093 58.70% 9,897 41.22% 19 0.08%
1952 13,904 58.32% 9,764 40.96% 172 0.72%
1948 9,511 45.72% 10,461 50.28% 832 4.00%
1944 7,900 44.47% 9,708 54.64% 158 0.89%
1940 7,275 39.17% 11,092 59.72% 206 1.11%
1936 4,425 28.05% 10,647 67.49% 703 4.46%
1932 4,241 30.91% 6,308 45.97% 3,173 23.12%
1928 7,203 69.59% 3,013 29.11% 135 1.30%
1924 5,125 57.77% 943 10.63% 2,803 31.60%
1920 3,899 52.77% 1,367 18.50% 2,122 28.72%
1916 3,223 47.76% 2,658 39.39% 867 12.85%
1912 1,937 30.69% 1,456 23.07% 2,918 46.24%
1908 1,940 57.28% 964 28.46% 483 14.26%
1904 2,121 68.51% 668 21.58% 307 9.92%
1900 1,298 54.56% 978 41.11% 103 4.33%
1896 1,052 42.27% 1,415 56.85% 22 0.88%
1892 1,043 41.70% 810 32.39% 648 25.91%

Education

[edit]

Several school districts provide K–12 education in Thurston County, including those that overlap with other counties:[44]

Thurston County also has three post-secondary educational institutions:

Parks and recreation

[edit]

The county is home to several rail trails, including the Chehalis Western Trail, which is the longest in the county, the Karen Fraser Woodland Trail, and the Yelm-Rainier-Tenino Trail.

Culture

[edit]

Arts and music

[edit]
See also: Music of Olympia, Washington

Olympia was a major source of indie music in the late 20th century and home to various grunge, punk, and indie rock bands in the 1980s and 1990s. Indie label K Records and the Evergreen State College's radio station KAOS, both founded by musician Calvin Johnson, brought many groups into the mainstream and wider success.[45]

Media

[edit]

The newspaper of record for Thurston County is The Olympian, a newspaper based in Olympia that is owned by the McClatchy Company and publishes three print editions per week.[46][47] As of 2022, it has a circulation of 17,401.[48] The Olympian was founded in 1891 and merged with several local newspapers in the early 20th century to become the sole daily newspaper in the county. Earlier newspapers included The Columbian, founded in 1852, and The Washington Standard, which was published weekly from 1860 to 1921.[49] As the state capital, Olympia formerly had bureaus for newspapers across the state, including the two dailies in Seattle, and several reporters from the Associated Press. By 2021, the Olympia bureaus had shrunk to only six reporters.[50]

The county also has several weekly and online news publications.[48] The Nisqually Valley News, founded in 1922, is published weekly in Yelm and has been a sister publication of The Chronicle of Centralia since 1994.[51][52] Tenino had several competing newspapers during the 1910s that were succeeded by the Tenino Independent, which has been published weekly since 1922.[48][52] An alt weekly, the Weekly Volcano was published in Olympia from 2001 to 2013;[53][54] it was later revived in 2023.[55] The Journal of Olympia, Lacey & Tumwater (JOLT) is a non-profit online news organization that was founded in 2020.[56]

Libraries

[edit]

Thurston County is part of the Timberland Regional Library, a public library system that serves five counties in southwestern Washington and is headquartered in Tumwater.[57] It has seven locations in the county and a dedicated bookmobile service.[58] Thurston County is a founding member of the Timberland system, which was established as a pilot project in 1964 and made into a permanent intercounty rural library district in 1968. The county had previously been served by the South Puget Sound Regional Library, which was contracted to operate libraries in the cities of Lacey, Olympia, and Yelm. These cities were later annexed directly into the Timberland system by the 1980s.[59][60] The oldest public library in the county was opened in 1896 by the Woman's Club of Olympia, who donated their collection of 900 books to the city government in 1909. A permanent Carnegie library in Olympia was opened in 1914 with 1,500 books and was used by the city and Timberland until a new library building opened in 1978.[61]

Infrastructure

[edit]

Transportation

[edit]

Thurston County is bisected by Interstate 5, the major north–south freeway on the U.S. West Coast that connects Washington, Oregon, and California.[62] The freeway travels through Grand Mound, Tumwater, Olympia, and Lacey and continues south to Portland, Oregon, and north to Tacoma and Seattle. It was constructed in the 1950s and 1960s to replace U.S. Route 99, the original north–south highway in Western Washington.[12] Interstate 5 intersects several other highways within Thurston County that provide connections to other areas of Washington state. These include U.S. Route 12, which travels west from Grand Mound to Aberdeen; U.S. Route 101, which encircles most of the Olympic Peninsula and provides access to Aberdeen via State Route 8; and State Route 510, which travels along the Nisqually River to Yelm, where it intersects State Route 507.[63][64]

The county has two public transportation providers and connections to other systems that serve neighboring counties. Intercity Transit has 18 routes that serve the cities and urban growth areas of Olympia, Lacey, Tumwater, and Yelm. In addition to local service, the agency operates The One, a rapid bus service in Olympia and Lacey, and express buses to Lakewood that connect with the Sound Transit system.[65][66] All routes in the Intercity Transit system have been fare-free since 2020; the agency is funded by a local sales tax within its service area, which was formed in 1980.[67][68] Rural Transit is operated by the Thurston Regional Planning Council between communities south of Olympia and Tumwater. It is also fare-free and connects with Lewis County Transit in Centralia.[69]

Passenger rail service through Thurston County is operated by Amtrak, which has two routes that serve Centennial Station in southern Lacey, which opened in 1993 and is primarily run by volunteers.[70] The Cascades has several daily trips to Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver; the Coast Starlight has one daily train that runs between Seattle, Sacramento, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Los Angeles.[71][72] These routes run on tracks owned by the BNSF Railway, which primarily operates freight trains through the county on the Seattle Subdivision. Several branch railroads also pass through Thurston County, including the Puget Sound and Pacific Railroad and two lines owned by the Port of Olympia that were leased to Tacoma Rail until 2016.[73][74]

The county has one public airport, Olympia Regional Airport, which is owned by the Port of Olympia and used for general aviation, business flights, air ambulances, and government use. It has two runways, a passenger terminal, and an air traffic control tower.[75] The airport and two other sites in Thurston County were among candidates considered by a state legislative commission for a new passenger airport to relieve crowding at Seattle–Tacoma International Airport, the main passenger airport in the region.[76]

Healthcare

[edit]

Thurston County has two major hospitals that have a combined 500-bed capacity. The largest is Providence St. Peter Hospital north of Lacey, which has 390 beds and is operated by Providence Health & Services.[77] It was founded in 1887 at a location in Olympia and moved to its current campus near Lacey in 1971.[78][79] The Capital Medical Center in Olympia, operated by MultiCare Health since 2021, has 107 beds and an off-campus emergency room in Lacey.[80][81] It was built in 1985 to address a shortage in hospital capacity in the South Puget Sound region.[82]

Communities

[edit]
Aerial view of Olympia, the county seat of and largest city in Thurston County

Cities

[edit]

Towns

[edit]

Census-designated places

[edit]

Unincorporated communities

[edit]

Ghost towns

[edit]

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b c d "State & County QuickFacts: Thurston County, Washington". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved October 26, 2024.
  2. ^ "Find a County". National Association of Counties. Retrieved June 7, 2011.
  3. ^ Reinartz, Kay. "History of King County Government 1853–2002" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on December 1, 2007. Retrieved December 29, 2007.
  4. ^ "Thurston County Place Names: A Heritage Guide" (PDF). Thurston County Historical Commission. 1992. p. 87. Archived (PDF) from the original on September 18, 2015. Retrieved March 28, 2018.
  5. ^ Thompson, Lorrine (January 31, 2002). "Tribes play key role in county's history". The Olympian. pp. 36–37. Retrieved October 23, 2024 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. ^ a b c d e f Stevenson, Shanna (January 31, 2002). "Petitions, meetings led to county's birth". The Olympian. pp. 6, 8. Retrieved October 23, 2024 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. ^ Longoria, Ruth (January 31, 2002). "County's namesake never visited here". The Olympian. p. 35. Retrieved October 23, 2024 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ^ a b Long, John H., ed. (2007). "Washington: Individual County Chronologies". Atlas of Historical County Boundaries. Newberry Library. Retrieved October 23, 2024.
  9. ^ Nicandri, David L. (November 26, 1974). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory—Nomination Form: Thurston County Courthouse/Washington State Capitol Building". National Park Service. pp. 2, 5–9. Retrieved October 23, 2024.
  10. ^ a b c Batcheldor, Matt (December 7, 2008). "I-5 at 50: It's changed the face of the region". The Olympian. pp. A1–A2. Retrieved October 23, 2024 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. ^ Gough, William (February 8, 1987). "Olympia traffic mess to end—eventually". The Seattle Times. p. B2.
  12. ^ "Found: A Missing Link (And It's Open)". The Olympian. November 21, 1968. p. 1. Retrieved October 23, 2024 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. ^ "2010 Census Gazetteer Files". United States Census Bureau. August 22, 2012. Retrieved July 16, 2015.
  14. ^ Sailor, Craig (July 22, 2023). "Rare South Sound blossom makes comeback". The Olympian. Retrieved September 1, 2023.
  15. ^ Browne Grivas, Erica (May 9, 2023). "Why conservation groups are trying to restore native prairies in WA". The Seattle Times. Retrieved September 1, 2023.
  16. ^ "Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Counties: April 1, 2020 to July 1, 2023". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved November 9, 2024.
  17. ^ "U.S. Decennial Census". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved January 8, 2014.
  18. ^ "Historical Census Browser". University of Virginia Library. Retrieved January 8, 2014.
  19. ^ "Population of Counties by Decennial Census: 1900 to 1990". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved January 8, 2014.
  20. ^ "Census 2000 PHC-T-4. Ranking Tables for Counties: 1990 and 2000" (PDF). United States Census Bureau. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 26, 2015. Retrieved January 8, 2014.
  21. ^ Bilbao, Martín (September 26, 2021). "Census data shows how Thurston County has become more diverse over last decade". The Olympian. Retrieved October 27, 2024.
  22. ^ Schrager, Daniel (July 4, 2024). "Is Lacey's population growing faster than Olympia's? New data shows largest cities in WA". The Olympian. Retrieved October 27, 2024.
  23. ^ 2024 Population Trends (PDF) (Report). Washington State Office of Financial Management. September 2024. p. 18. Retrieved October 27, 2024.
  24. ^ Hobbs, Andy (April 2, 2017). "Olympia area among nation's fastest-growing communities, according to census". The Olympian. Retrieved October 27, 2024.
  25. ^ Balk, Gene (October 24, 2024). "Olympia ranked No. 1 in U.S. for share of middle-class residents". The Seattle Times. Retrieved October 27, 2024.
  26. ^ Seattle–Tacoma, WA Combined Statistical Area (PDF) (Map). United States Census Bureau. February 2013. Retrieved October 27, 2024.
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  28. ^ "How many people live in Thurston County, Washington". USA Today. Retrieved November 9, 2024.
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46°56′N 122°50′W / 46.93°N 122.83°W / 46.93; -122.83

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