Stocking The Past -- Gleam Of Living History In Olympia Jewelry Store

OLYMPIA - The gurgling artesian well bubbling up in the back room of Talcott Jewelers was the first sign to the fourth- and fifth-grade girls in Troop 667 that their tour in pursuit of a jewelry badge had led them someplace different.

For along with their lessons on the value of precious gems, brought home with a gasp as each tried on a $45,000 ruby ring, the Girl Scouts saw the gleam of living history.

To study the history of the Talcott store is to study the history of Olympia, which, as the former territorial capital, is a good part of the story of early settlement in Washington state.

Richard Talcott Jr., fifth-generation owner of his family's 125-year-old store, is the latest in his line to be "burdened" by the Talcott family trait of holding on to anything that could be of potential historical value.

For instance, how could he give up:

-- The first watch his family repaired in 1872 or the watch that belonged to the first territorial governor, Isaac Stevens, until the day Stevens died on a Civil War battlefield.

-- The tool-and-die set used when the Talcotts created the official state seal in 1889, not to mention the cough syrup label they copied to get a good profile of George Washington.

All that stuff threatens to crowd out modern displays of diamonds and clocks and cut glass vases in the prosperous store, which is the oldest jewelry store in the state and a contender for the oldest business.

It's impossible to separate the store from its history, said the latest Talcott owner, even though the displays, like the tours, are of debatable business benefit.

But for the schoolchildren and Scout troops who regularly tour the store, or the elderly who come back for short stints week after week to finish thumbing through the preserved documents, the little museum is just the right size to create interest in the area's beginnings. Or so says Derek Valley, director of the much larger State Capitol Museum up the street, who believes hearing history from an actual Talcott makes it all the more meaningful.

"If you look at a person and say, `This person is related to the people who started this business on this site so many years ago, it makes it so much more personal, especially for young kids,' " Valley said.

It's not that the Talcotts determined the destiny of the state; it's just that they were always in the right place at the right time.

Artesian wells

Many Olympia businesses have artesian wells running through their basements, and for some it's a problem. But the Talcott well, tamed by pipes to provide a water fountain for employees, has additional historical significance - of course.

The original Talcott brothers, who opened their store in 1872, offered a taste from their well to Adolph Schmidt, who was so taken by the purity that he moved his family brewery from Montana to nearby Tumwater.

Olympia Brewery, made with pure artesian water, which means it bubbles up on its own without pumps, eventually became a major employer in the area.

"My grandfather works there," said one of the Scouts.

Washington Territory was wide open for entrepreneurs when the Talcotts arrived. If there was a need, they filled it, either by volunteering their time or inventing something useful.

Olympia, 60 miles south of Seattle, was the population center as early as the 1850s because it was so easy to reach.

From the west, visitors could travel down the Columbia River and up the Cowlitz River and then overland.

Other travelers came by sailing ship to Puget Sound and then used small vessels along the waterways to Olympia from Tacoma and Steilacoom.

Life in the 1850s and 1860s was primarily the basic survival of carving out farms, historian Valley said, but a few industrious families took advantage of the trees, which were said to be as "thick as hair on the back of a dog," and began shipping timber to San Francisco.

Economy improves

By the 1870s, those families had money to spend, which was enough to tempt Lucius Lord Talcott from Pittsfield, Ill., where for many years he'd been outfitting wagon trains coming west.

Talcott and his brother, Charley, opened their jewelry store in a wooden structure they rented from T.F. McElroy, publisher of the territory's first newspaper (Richard Talcott has an 1852 copy of Vol. I, No. 1, of The Columbian, on display).

When the building burned in the great Olympia fire of 1882, the Talcotts built Olympia's fourth brick building, which remains the home of Talcott Jewelry.

The Talcott display cases today contain not only the first watch repaired by the Talcotts in 1872 (it belonged to McElroy), but also porcelain teeth that went with gold inlays made for local dentists, and the optometry equipment that was often part of a jeweler's business ("You can mend your cloth . . . but not your eyes," a Talcott advertisement read).

In the 1880s, the family really branched out.

"As each businessman came into town, they saw that my great-grandfather was successful with certain merchandise, and so they would pick up that line for their stores," Richard Talcott said. "To protect himself, he would pick up the line they carried. In 10 years, it became Talcott's Variety Store."

There seemed no end to the family interests.

Talcott's indelible ink.

Talcott's umbrellas ("Beautiful wooden handles which are cut from the surrounding swamps," says the ad).

Grant Talcott helped found the fire department; the first substation in Olympia later carried his name.

The Talcotts had the first soda fountain and the first wagon delivery service.

The family bought a vault and rented out safe-deposit boxes when people distrusted banks in the 1930s. (Today, employees roll nearly everything of value into the vault each night, one reason the store has never been robbed or burglarized.)

Much of the success came from invention by necessity, Valley said.

Any technological breakthroughs in the East took a while to reach the West, and then they had to be adapted to this area. A photographer familiar with chemicals, for instance, would compare knowledge with people like the Talcotts and in that way each learned from the other.

The Talcotts took advantage of the "diatomaceous earth" left behind centuries earlier when salt water covered Olympia and layers of skeletal remains of microorganisms formed, Valley said. The family mined the fossils to create a fine grinding material and their own line of toothpaste.

Richard Talcott, who started working at his family store right out of college 26 years ago, said the Talcotts never were academics.

"We don't have any brain surgeons in the family, but if I were to generalize, I'd say we have adventurous spirits, creativity and a persistence," Talcott said. "And it's just lucky that each generation found its way."

Noyes Talcott's foresight

Talcott's grandfather, Noyes Talcott, may have been the kingpin to the longevity. He returned the family business back to its roots as a jewelry store and was the driving force behind collecting the family history.

Noyes Talcott gave his son, Richard Sr., little option but to join the family business after he returned from the adventure of training bomber pilots in World War II.

Richard Jr. said his father was careful not to pressure him the same way, but eventually Richard Jr. came to see the benefit of "being in charge of your own destiny" as a business owner.

The fifth-generation owner has tried not to overly influence his children - Angie, 22; Mack, 9; and Luke, 7 - but he's always pleased when he hears them express interest in gems or history.

The "historical gene" skipped a generation after Noyes. Richard Jr. became the prime audience for his grandfather's stories when it became clear his father wasn't interested.

"Fortunately, my grandfather lived to be 89 before he died in 1981," Talcott said, "so I had a really long adulthood with him."

One of Talcott's sisters, Lori, was part of the business until she left to pursue rock climbing and to manufacture her own successful jewelry line. His brother, Gary, is a professional climbing guide on Mount Rainier. Two other sisters took up more traditional careers.

Although Talcott acknowledges that he made his choices based on his passions, he often envies what he sees as his siblings' greater freedom. There's as much encumbrance in keeping the family history as there is in running the family business.

"The more you take on, the more fixed you get," Talcott said. "No way could I leave if I decided to change. I feel a responsibility to pass it on to the next generation."