Thurston County Off Campus School – By Steven Kant

“Off Campus” was an alternative secondary school located in a run-down rental house on Martin Way. The school was founded in the early 1970s by students and teachers. It was a non-profit organization run democratically by all of the students and all of the teachers that worked there. There was a corporation and a board of directors, but the decisions were made at meetings at the school every Friday where each person had one vote.

Hank Adams Tribute – By Llyn De Danaan

Hank was my teacher. He was patient. He asked me to read a thick, typed manuscript he was working on. It was, in large part, an explication of Grant’s Peace Policy, a policy that promoted assimilation and placed Indian agencies in the hands of religious groups. The policy led to boarding schools and the breaking up of reservations into allotments. The manuscript led me to years of research and immersion in indigenous issues.

Alexander Berkman Collective Becomes Black Walnut Association Land Trust 1974 – 1976 By Susan Davenport

Tess and I made a couple trips to Olympia looking at places. Olympia was semi-rural as close as two miles out of the Westside and Evergreen was essentially in the woods. We were interviewed by some landlords and potential housemates that just didn’t click for either of us. Our last stop was one recommended by Don Martin who knew a household that was having an exodus of roommates. They would have openings. It was Alexander Berkman Collective, “sister house” to the Emma Goldman Collective.

Celebration of Olympia Artists – May 1983 – By LLyn De Danaan

In 1983, Lynn Patterson (aka LLyn De Danaan, photographer and cultural anthropologist), Marilyn Frasca (visual artist and Evergreen faculty), Shannon Osborne (owner of Smithfield Café), Mary Fitzgerald (photographer), Candy Street, Cappy Thompson (glass artist) and Carolyn McIntyre (the founder of Radiance) created an arts feast to demonstrate that artists were at the core of a new Olympia. They organized a month-long “Celebration of Olympia Artists” and, in the spirit of inclusivity and collaboration, invited the community to submit information about their own events and to participate in a variety of shows.

Life on a Hippie Farm By Anna Schlecht

In the early days of Evergreen there was little housing on campus and not much rental housing available in town. Apparently, many of the first students lived in tents and lean-tos in the woods surrounding campus. When I first came to Olympia in the mid-1970s, I was enchanted by those stories and decided that was the life for me. Somehow I heard about IOCWAT Farm (In Our Community We Are Together), most likely one of the other residents rolled through my check-out line at the downtown food co-op and told me there was an opening. Or perhaps I found a flier about the farm with a tear-off number to call. However it was that I found the farm, moving to this rural commune began my chapter of living off grid.

The Launch of the Columbia Street Food Co-op – By Anna Schlecht and Beth Hartmann

In 1977, the brand new storefront Co-op was coming together, the result of volunteers building shelves, plugging in coolers, and setting out the food. Over the years, the migrating co-ops had gone through numerous incarnations. Finally, the Columbia Street Food Co-op emerged in its current form, built on an organizational foundation that would last into the future. We were both part of the launch of this community cornerstone.