Thurston County is a county located in the U.S. state of Washington. As of the 2020 census, its population was 294,793. The county seat is Olympia, the state capital.
Thurston County was created out of Lewis County by the government of Oregon Territory on January 12, 1852. At that time, it covered all of the Puget Sound region and the Olympic Peninsula. On December 22 of the same year, Pierce, King, Island, and Jefferson counties were split off from Thurston County. It is named after Samuel R. Thurston, the Oregon Territory's first delegate to Congress. Today, the county includes the southernmost part of the South Puget Sound and areas south along the I-5 corridor.
Thurston County comprises the Olympia–Lacey–Tumwater, WA Metropolitan Statistical Area and is included in the Seattle–Tacoma, WA Combined Statistical Area.
History
The southern end of Puget Sound is the homeland of several indigenous Coast Salish groups, including the Nisqually, Squaxin, and Upper Chehalis. Archeological remains at Tumwater Falls date back to 2,500 to 3,000 years before present; the area around the falls included a settlement with several longhouses. The first European exhibition to the southern Puget Sound was conducted by Peter Puget and Joseph Whidbey on the British-led Vancouver Expedition in May 1792. The Hudson's Bay Company established a trading post at Fort Nisqually in 1833 on the east side of the Nisqually Delta while the Oregon Country was under joint administration by the British and American governments. Permanent European (and later American) settlement of modern-day Thurston County began with the arrival of a pioneer party led by Michael Simmons and Black pioneer George Bush in 1845. Several families settled near Tumwater Falls at a site they named "New Market", which became the first European settlement in Western Washington. A petition by 54 residents of Olympia and surrounding communities was submitted to the Oregon Territorial Legislature in December 1851 to create a new county from Lewis County. The proposed name of Simmons County, named for Michael Simmons, was changed to Thurston County by the legislature at the suggestion of Asa Lovejoy to honor Samuel Thurston, the first delegate to the U.S. Congress from Oregon Territory.
Thurston County was created on January 12, 1852, by the Oregon Territorial Legislature and Olympia was designated as its seat. Sawamish County (now Mason County) was created in March 1854 from the northwestern portions of Thurston County and Chehalis County (now Grays Harbor County) was established a month later from the remaining western half of Thurston County. Several exchanges of land between Thurston and neighboring counties were made during the 1860s and settled into the modern boundaries by 1873. Thurston County remained predominantly dependent on the logging industry until the state government became the county's largest employment sector in the 1950s. Several state government agencies had attempted to move their offices to Seattle until a 1954 Washington Supreme Court ruling mandated that their headquarters remain in the Olympia area. a proposal to build the freeway further away from Olympia was rejected to preserve rural areas. The completion of Interstate 5 enabled the growth of bedroom communities around Thurston County, which saw its population rapidly increase from the 1950s to 1970s. Racial segregation in Washington was different from the well-known accounts of Southern segregation during the Jim Crow era. While Southern states required racial segregation in public facilities by law, much of the racial segregation in Washington was accomplished through racial restrictive covenants which were legally binding agreements between private parties. These covenants were often included in property deeds between individual buyers and sellers, who agreed to never sell the property to specified racial or religious groups. In some cases, large groups of property owners would come together to implement racial restrictive covenants on entire subdivisions or neighborhoods, which are called petitions. In rarer cases, Italians and Jewish individuals were also excluded from homeownership.
Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which is land and (6.7%) is water.
Adjacent counties
- Pierce County – northeast
- Lewis County – south
- Grays Harbor County – west
- Mason County – north/northwest
Major highways
- 20px Interstate 5
- 20px U.S. 12
- 23px U.S. 101
- 23px SR 8
- 23px SR 507
- 23px SR 510
Geographic features
Major watersheds: Black River, Budd/Deschutes, Chehalis River, Eld Inlet, Henderson Inlet, Nisqually River, Skookumchuck River, Totten Inlet and West Capitol Forest.
- Alder Lake
- Bald Hill Lake
- Barnes Lake
- Bass Lake
- Bigelow Lake
- Black Lake
- Black River
- Budd Inlet
- Capitol Lake
- Capitol Peak
- Capitol State Forest
- Chambers Lake
- Chehalis River
- Clear Lake
- Deep Lake
- Deschutes River
- Elbow Lake
- Eld Inlet
- Fifteen Lake
- Gehrke Lake
- Grass Lake
- Henderson Inlet
- Hewitt Lake
- Hicks Lake
- Lake Lawrence
- Lake Lois
- Libby Creek
- Long Lake
- McIntosh Lake
- Mima Mounds
- Munn Lake
- Nisqually River
- Offut Lake
- Patterson Lake
- Puget Sound
- Reichel Lake
- Rocky Prairie
- Saint Clair Lake
- Scott Lake
- Simmons Lake
- Skookumchuck River
- Smith Lake
- Southwick Lake
- Springer Lake
- Summit Lake
- Susan Lake
- Totten Inlet
- Trails End Lake
- Trosper Lake
- Ward Lake
National protected areas
- Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge
Ecology and environment
The habitat for the Golden Paintbrush (Castilleja levisecta) runs through the county. The plant was placed on the Endangered Species list in 1997 but due to conservation efforts the tall prairie flower was delisted in 2023.
Wildlife and land preserves in South Thurston County include the Black River Habitat Management Area, the Glacial Heritage Preserve, and the Scatter Creek Wildlife Area.
Economy
Employment
, Thurston County had 133,300 non-farm jobs and an unemployment rate of 3.5% (without adjustments for seasonal labor); there was a total of 4,983 unemployed individuals.
The mean hourly wage in the Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater metropolitan statistical area across all non-farm occupations was $35.18 in May 2024, which is above the national average of $32.66.
, Thurston County had 143,640 employed individuals; the county's top employers were:
{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-
! Rank !! Employer
! Employees in 2023 !! Employees in 2014
! 2023 Share !! 2014 Share
|-
| 1 || State Government, including Education
| 28,700 || 23,896
| 19.98% || 20.42%
|-
| 2 || Local Government, including Education
| 12,700 || 11,910
| 8.84% || 10.18%
|-
| 3 || Providence Health & Services
| 2,600 || 1,600
| 1.81% || 1.37%
|-
| 4 || Albertsons/Safeway
| 1,200 || 876
| 0.84% || 0.75%
|-
| 5 || Walmart
| 1,100 || 1,023
| 0.77% || 0.87%
|-
| 6 || Lucky Eagle Casino
| 1,000 || 600
| 0.70% || 0.51%
|-
| 7 || Federal Government
| 900 || 862
| 0.63% || 0.74%
|-
| 8 || Nisqually Red Wind Casino
| 700 || 600
| 0.49% || 0.51%
|-
| 9 || South Sound YMCA
| 550 || -
| 0.38% || 0%
|-
| 10 || Continuum Global Solutions
| 500 || -
| 0.35% || 0%
|-
| 10 || Fred Meyer
| 500 || -
| 0.35% || 0%
|-
| 10 || Great Wolf Lodge
| 500 || -
| 0.35% || 0%
|-
| 10 || Northwest Cannabis Solutions
| 500 || -
| 0.35% || 0%
|}
Tourism
In 2024, the county was visited by 3.39million people, generating over $572 million in revenue. Over 4,000 jobs were supported by the tourism industry which produced more than $56 million in combined tax revenues at the local and county level.