A Blast from the Past
It was a bit of a challenge to find specific history about East Bay but I found a lot of information about the general area.
The historic Olympia Peninsula was known as “the black bear place” to the Native Americans who inhabited the area. The Budd Inlet was a popular gathering place of neighboring tribal groups. European settlement of Olympia occurred in 1853. The descendants of the Native Americans who inhabited this area are members of the Squaxin and Nisqually tribes.
Olympia was known for having amazing oysters back in the day and their own species called Olympia Oysters. In 1893 the first oyster processing plant was built on the Budd Inlet waterfront. This didn’t last long due to pollution of the waters and over-harvesting.
East Bay Waterfront Park is a 1.86 mile area developed in 1994.
“In the early 1980’s a large dredging operation was undertaken at East Bay to provide for a boat moorage facility, land for development, and to regularize the boundary on the east side of north Olympia.”
-A short history of Budd Inlet
file:///C:/Users/Chloe/Downloads/A-Short-History-of-Budd-Inlet.1992.pdf
