OLYMPIA 



4372 



OLYMPIAN GAMES 



of the notable Pullman strike of 1894 in Chi- 

 cago, by the interference of the Federal gov- 

 ernment, a step which set a precedent in such 

 matters. In 1913 President Wilson offered Ol- 

 ney the ambassadorship to England, but he did 

 not accept it, largely on account of his advanced 

 age. 



OLYMPIA, olim'pia, the scene of the an- 

 cient Olympian Games, where Grecian athletes 

 strove for fame. It is a valley in Klis, Greece, 

 where in ancient times were collected thou- 

 sands of statues of the gods, temples, votive 

 offerings and the most precious and priceless 

 treasures of Grecian art. Here was the mag- 

 nificent temple of the Olympian Zeus, contain- 

 ing the colossal statue of the god by Phidias, 

 which ranked as one of the seven wonders of 

 the world. Here also was the Prytaneum, the 

 vast hall in w r hich the victors dined in celebra- 

 tion of their conquests and the building in 

 which all rules and regulations governing the 

 contests were drawn up, the whole forming a 

 quadrangle 1,800 feet long and 1,500 feet broad. 

 Outside the walls of the quadrangle were the 

 hippodrome, or race course, where chariot races 

 were held, the stadium for foot races, a gym- 

 nasium and a theater. 



The German government commenced exca- 

 vations on the site of Olympia in 1875, and 

 nearly all the ancient buildings have been un- 

 covered after having been buried for ages under 

 the soil washed down by the streams between 

 which the Olympian valley lies. Fragments of 

 sculpture, coins, terra cottas, and bronzes have 

 been found, the most important discovery be- 

 ing that of the Hermes of Praxiteles. Accord- 

 ing to an .agreement between the German and 

 Grecian governments the originals of all discov- 

 eries remained in the possession of Greece, but 

 Germany reserved the right to take casts from 

 all sculpture, coins or other discoveries. A mu- 

 seum of Olympian relics has been established 

 in Berlin. 



OLYMPIA, WASH., the state capital, and the 

 county seat of Thurston County, situated at 

 the southern end of Puget Sound on Budd's 

 Inlet and at the mouth of the Deschutes River. 

 It is in the southwestern part of the state, 

 sixty-five miles southwest of Seattle and 100 

 miles north of Portland, Ore., and is on the 

 Northern Pacific Railroad and on the line of 

 the Oregon- Washington Railroad & Navigation 

 Company. There is regular steamboat service 

 to other ports on the Sound and on the Pacific 

 Coast. The population was 6,996 in 1910. In 

 1917 it was estimated at about 12,000. 



Olympia is beautifully situated between hills 

 of the Cascade Range, which are covered with 

 extrusive fir forests. The principal buildings 

 of the city include the Temple of Justice, 

 riveted in Capitol Park at a cost of $1,000,000, 

 the first completed building of a magnificent 

 group which will include the new State House; 

 the present Capitol building, the governor's 

 mansion, a Carnegie Library, high school build- 

 ing and county courthouse. In addition to 

 several small, attractive parks is Priest Point 

 Park, a natural woodland of 256 acres which 

 has a frontage of a mile along the inlet, and 

 accommodations for bathing and boating. 



The annual output of the sawmills of Olym- 

 pia and vicinity is valued at $3,600,000. Wood- 

 working factories produce large amounts of 

 shingles, doors, sash and trim. Oysters and fish 

 are shipped in great quantities and the city has 

 a cannery for fruits and vegetables, and a knit- 

 ting mill which produces goods for the North- 

 west and Alaska. 



The first settlement in the vicinity was at 

 Tumwater near the falls of the Deschutes, which 

 now furnish power for manufacture in Olympia. 

 After the opening of the gold camps in Cali- 

 fornia in 1849, the fine timber of the north was 

 exchanged there for other commodities, and the 

 industrial life of Olympia began. The place 

 became the capital of Washington in 1853 and 

 was chartered as a city in 1859. H.L.W. 



OLYMPIAD, o Urn' pi ad, in Greek chro- 

 nology, the period of four years that elapsed be- 

 tween two successive celebrations of the Olym- 

 pic games. The system of counting time by 

 Olympiads became prevalent about 300 B.C., 

 and all events were dated from 776 B. c., the 

 beginning of the first recorded Olympiad. The 

 Olympiads were used as measures of time by 

 later Greek historians and other writers to re- 

 fer to preceding centuries, but they were never 

 in contemporary use, as were months and years. 



OLYMPIAN, o Urn' pi an, GAMES. In 1896 

 the finest amateur athletes of the world, repre- 

 senting many nations, assembled at Athens to 

 engage in a series of international contests. 

 This event, the first modern celebration of the 

 Olympian games, represented the revival, after 

 a lapse of fifteen centuries, of the most impor- 

 tant Greek festival of ancient times. Farther 

 back than history records, some of the people 

 of the Peloponnesus began to hold a contest 

 in foot racing, in honor of Zeus, on the plain 

 of Olympia, in Elis. Gradually the festival be- 

 came an affair of national importance, cele- 

 brated by all the Hellenic states, and in 776 



