After doing some morning errands in town, I stopped at Tumwater Falls park. This gem of a site is owned and operated by the private, non-profit Olympia Tumwater Foundation. It is open to the public at no charge but receives no government support for staffing or maintenance.
There is an obelisk in the picnic area of "Skip's Grove" that has a plaque in the memory of Philip “Skip” Schmidt, “who was instrumental in the design and development of Tumwater Falls Park in 1962.”
Skip was an executive with his family's Olympia Brewing
Company. He was also a mayor of Tumwater, Washington. The Olympia Brewing Company was a brewery in
the northwest United States, located in Tumwater, Washington, near Olympia.
Founded in 1896 by Skip's grandfather, Leopold Friederich Ludwig Schmidt, a
German immigrant from Montana, it was bought by G. Heileman Brewing Company in
1983. Through a series of consolidations, it was acquired by Pabst Brewing
Company in 1999; the Tumwater brewery was closed in 2003, throwing 400 Union
employees out of work.
If you enjoy going there for one of the easiest views of
American Dippers that you’ll get (not that I saw one today…), please consider
making a donation to these fine people.
The falls were the location of early commerce and
manufacturing in the 19th Century.
Today, the structures have been removed, except for the 1950s-era fish
ladders, and the salmon hatchery at the top of the upper falls.
The hatchery, operated by the Washington Department of
Fish and Wildlife, is undergoing renovation.
Because it is one of the major contributors to the fall chinook salmon
run into south Puget Sound, it is important to the Tribal and recreational
fisheries.
There’s always something interesting to see at the
park. One of the fences has become a
site for love locks - those padlocks that sweethearts lock onto a bridge, fence,
gate, monument, or similar public fixture to symbolize their love.
Here, a cluster of Mylar balloons has snagged in a
tree. All released balloons, including
those falsely marketed as “biodegradable latex,” return to Earth as ugly
litter. They kill countless animals and cause dangerous power outages when they
entangle utility lines. Please don’t ever let a balloon loose!
It was well worth spending an hour, although I didn’t see
a lot of species.
I always enjoy a walk around this park’s loop trail. But, I had to get home and finish packing for
my trip to Texas. I’m leaving tomorrow
to drive to McAllen, to attend the 26th annual Lower Rio Grande Valley Birding
Festival.
Tumwater Falls eBird checklist is Here
