Annie Spring/Lost Creek

The New Deal public works employment and funding agencies, in particular the Emergency Conservation Work (ECW) and Public Works Administration (PWA), provided a large infusion of men and funds to the park to enable management to complete a significant portion ...

Lake Cushman

Lake Cushman borders the southeast corner of Olympic State park. In 1871, an Olympia newspaper claimed that rich iron ore deposits were found near Lake Cushman. Excitement about iron deposits in the Lake Cushman area renewed in 1888 and apparently ...

Kalaloch

For millennia, these beaches likely offered a safe landing place for ancestors of area tribes. For thousands of sea creatures, these waters are still a safe haven. It wasn't always like this however.Sea otters used to reside near the Kalaloch ...

Heart O’ The Hills

During the 1910s and 1920s, mountaineering and hiking clubs formed and made regular hiking expeditions into the Olympic Mountains. The Klahhane Club of Port Angeles formed in 1914, and each year an outing was planned to some point in the ...

Olympic Hot Springs

Andrew Jacobsen was the first to report the discovery of the hot springs on Boulder Creek in the early 1890s. In 1906 Jacobsen returned to the hot springs, retrieved a bottle of its water to prove his discovery to others, ...

Lake Crescent

Lake Crescent, at the northern extremity of the park, is one of the most beautiful mountain lakes in the United States. Glacial activity carved the basin of Lake Crescent to a depth of more than 600 feet in some places.

Located ...

Sol Duc Area

A local Indian legend explains how Olympic and Sol Duc Hot Springs were created. There were two dragons. One lived in the Sol Duc Valley and the other lived in the Elwha Valley. One day they came face to face ...

Ozette Lake

A storm and serendipity unveiled one of the richest archeological sites in North America. In the mid-1960s, archeologists from Washington State University began excavating 12-foot thick deposits on the sheltered side of Cape Alava. Bone, shell and stone artifacts told ...

Mount Olympus

The Olympic Mountains were formed between 15 million and 55 million years ago when two crustal plates collided and drove the mountains up from the ocean floor. For eons, wind and rain washed sediments from the land into the ocean. ...

Lake Quinault

On July 14, 1775, a seven-member foraging party was sent inland by Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra, captain of the Sonora, to replenish the ship's water supply, gather firewood, and find a replacement for the ship's topmast. The ...