Harry White photograph collection, 1903-1950

Olympia was designated as the seat of government for Washington Territory in 1854. The first capitol building was constructed two years later on a twelve-acre parcel of land that was donated by the founder of Olympia, Edmund Sylvester. The simple frame building served as the territorial and state capitol until 1903, fourteen years after Washington was admitted to statehood. Steps toward erecting a permanent capitol building were taken in 1893, after $500,000 had been appropriated for this purpose, and a nation-wide design competition was announced. The winner of the competition was Ernest Flagg, an architect from New York, and from his designs the foundations of the new capitol building were laid. The construction was soon halted, however, by financial and political complications. Because of these difficulties, Governor John R. Rogers decided to abandon the just completed foundation, opting instead to purchase the Thurston County Courthouse, which would serve as the state capitol from 1903 to 1928.

By 1909, the capitol building had become so congested that the legislature authorized the completion of the Flagg designs, but no appropriation was ever made. In 1911, the legislature passed an act that would provide for a second national design competition. This time, however, the plan called for a group scheme of capitol buildings and in addition, a plan for the first unit of the group to be built, the Temple of Justice. An appropriation of $300,000 was provided for this project. The State Capitol Commission, consisting of Governor Hay, the Auditor, the Commissioner of Public Lands, the Tax Commissioner, and three citizens appointed by the governor was formed. Charles Bebb, a Seattle architect, served as the commission's advisor and took part in judging the thirty-seven competition entries.

The winning entry was submitted by Wilder and White from New York, and both their group plan and their design for the Temple of Justice building were accepted. The Wilder and White capitol plan was the first in the United States to include a group of buildings. The original plan consisted of six buildings, five of which would be symmetrically arranged around the Legislative Building. Access to the capitol complex would be from the north along Capitol Lake, beginning at the downtown train depot. The Olmsted Brothers of Brookline, Massachusetts, were to design a landscaping plan which would best complement the placement of the buildings. Wilder and White presented the committee with a revised proposal in 1912 and the construction on the Temple of Justice began.

The election of a new governor in 1913, Governor Ernest Lister, halted construction on the other buildings included in the project. Lister, who had run his election campaign on a platform which emphasized prudent spending for state affairs, was convinced of the extravagance of the 1912 group plan and proposed his own group plan design. For the rest of the decade, the State Capitol Commission, the legislature, the state architects, and the press grappled with this issue. However, the death of Lister in 1919 resulted in the election of a new governor, Louis F. Hart, and the commission decided to return to the Wilder and White 1912 revised plan. The construction was resumed.

Office Building A (now the Insurance Building) was erected in 1920, as was the capitol campus power and heating plant facility. Construction for the Legislative Building (which was built over the remnants of the original Flagg foundation) began in 1922 and continued until 1928. The Highway Building was completed in 1934, followed by the Public Lands-Social Security Building in 1937. The final building of the Wilder and White group plan was to be located west of the Legislative Building but the building was never erected. An earthquake in 1949 dismantled the lantern on the dome of the Legislative Building, and in 1965, damage from another earthquake required that a complex and expensive program of earthquake stabilization be implemented. The earthquake of 2001 also damaged the capitol buildings.