You Are Here: Exploring Olympia at the Olympia AHA Museum

By Olympia AHA Museum & Visitor Center

This article is part of Alliance Committee Voices, an ongoing series highlighting stories from committee members of the Olympia Downtown Alliance.

At the corner of State Avenue and Columbia Street in the heart of downtown Olympia sits the Olympia AHA Museum and Visitor Center, where you will find murals and maps, historic artifacts, and colorful stories of Olympia past and present.

The museum’s location was once a waterfront site in the Steh-Chass village. Over the years since, it has been a blacksmith shop, a tire dealership, and a chocolate shop, with nearby Percival Landing hosting people and trade across South Puget Sound and beyond.

Olympia has a vibrant, rich and multi-faceted history, and this downtown museum invites you to explore Olympia’s past and present, our people and places. As a visitor center, AHA also serves as a welcoming gateway to downtown, offering maps, local insights, and ideas that help us move through Olympia with a stronger sense of orientation and belonging in the South Sound region.

Seeing Olympia Through a New Lens

In the AHA Museum’s entry gallery, two wall-sized maps by Olympia muralist Fern Tallos show downtown close-up and from a distant perspective. Exhibit boxes feature objects and stories representing Olympia’s cultural, historical, and artistic influences. Did you know that a single log can be dug out to create a canoe, or that forestry workers use special spiked “caulking boots” to walk on wet, slippery logs? These exhibit boxes offer different ways of seeing a familiar place, and a reminder that the character of a community is built by landscapes, industries, and ideas that influence one another over time.

Did you know Olympia is home to more than 120 murals? The Oly AHA exhibit “Paint the Town” explores how these murals reflect the creativity, history, and diversity of our community. The interactive Olympia Murals Map, officially launching September 17, 2026 and a kid-sized cardboard city invite people to see how art helps shape a sense of place.

Did you know that when the Evergreen State College opened in 1971 it was the first public four-year college authorized in Washington State in almost a century? Launching September 10, 2026 at Oly AHA, “The Evergreen Effect” examines how this unique college has significantly influenced the identity of Olympia.

Plan Your Visit

Museums help us gain perspective and orient ourselves within community.

At the Olympia AHA Museum and Visitor Center, exhibits invite visitors to see downtown Olympia as both a familiar place and a living, layered social ecosystem. Through maps, murals, artifacts, and local stories, we can better understand how Olympia has been shaped over time and how we are connected to its ongoing story.

Check out these exhibits and engage with community stories—and plan to return regularly for new experiences. The Olympia AHA Museum and Visitor Center is open Thursday through Sunday at 203 Columbia Street NW in the heart of downtown Olympia.

Check olyaha.org for details.