1848 - 1891

In 1891, the Woodland Driving Park opened to great fanfare in the community of Woodland, a mere four miles east of Olympia. The brainchild of former Olympia mayor Isaac Ellis, this one-mile horse racetrack sat just a short distance from the newly laid tracks of the Tacoma, Olympia and Grays Harbor Railroad. Also nearby were the recently constructed train depot and an elegant clubhouse, ready to welcome the visitors that were sure to come to what was at the time the second largest racetrack in the west. The major thoroughfare of the day, the Olympia-Steilacoom Road, provided yet another method of easy access to the location.

The investors fueling this growth came from Olympia. They saw the area known as Woodland as an extension of their city. The close proximity was not lost on the residents of Woodland either. For example, in 1890 when John Adams laid out the first plat in the area, he named it “Adams Acre Tracts Adjoining Olympia.” But for the people who lived in Woodland, they saw themselves as a separate community.

The area was settled much like most of the rest of Washington Territory with people from the East and Midwest following the Oregon Trail to make claims on large pieces of land. First to settle permanently was the David Chambers family in 1848 on the site of what is now Panorama. They were soon followed by other families whose names such as Eaton, Ruddell, Wood, Hicks, Parsons, Pattison, McMillan, Himes, Hawk, Fleetwood, Adams, and Carpenter now dot the landscape of Lacey on roads, lakes, streams and prairies.

The community developed organically as neighbors joined together to meet certain needs. In 1853, Stephen D. Ruddell set aside land for a cemetery needed after the death of the Eliza Jane Hicks, the young wife of his step-son, Urban East. In that same year, Ruddell was also the driving force in establishing the first school. In true pioneer fashion, the members of the community came together to build it not far from the cemetery. When the Indian War struck in 1855, William White was killed on nearby Eaton Prairie. Word spread quickly from farm to farm and neighbors made sure that everyone found a safe place to stay.

At first, the community was considered a part of Chambers Prairie, a huge swath of open land running from the edge of Olympia east to the meridian. When they voted, it was in the Chambers Prairie Precinct. The name Woodland appeared later. Isaac Wood, who had taken out a 320-acre Donation Land Claim just north of Hicks Lake in 1852, gave his farm the nickname “Wood Lawn.” According to Wood family lore, Isaac’s son Rollin devised the name “Woodland” for the farm and the community surrounding it.

New settlers added to the population. Children of pioneers married other children of pioneers. For instance, Urban East Hicks married India Ann Hartsock; Nathan Eaton married Lestina Himes; Helen Himes married William Ruddell; Stephen L. Ruddell married Emeline Himes; Nancy Parsons married David Fleetwood; William Fleetwood married Keziah Belle Ruddell; Stephen D. Ruddell married Margaret White, the widow of William. What had started as a community of mostly strangers grew to be one of friends and family.

Prior to 1891, along the Olympia-Steilacoom Road on the northern end of the community of farms and farmers, only one store opened by George Warren Carpenter and a sparsely populated subdivision along one street broke the pattern of open fields.

But the arrival of the railroad, the Woodland Driving Park, and the clubhouse (later to become the Woodland Hotel) focused attention on this community; a post office for Woodland seemed like a natural progression. Unfortunately, the name Woodland had already been given to a post office in Cowlitz County and so the name “Lacey” was chosen instead. The name of the community remained Woodland.

1891-1948

The Woodland Driving Park racetrack had brought the railroad, a hotel and a post office to the community of Woodland in 1891. Unfortunately for a succession of owners, with rare exception, it did not bring success. Yet these changes improved access to the community. The Thurston County Commission approved more local roads starting in the 1890s, such as Carpenter Road. In 1896 they also agreed with 33 petitioners that Woodland deserved its own voting precinct separate from Chambers Prairie.

Olympia city fathers, still seeing Woodland as an extension of their fair city, convinced the Benedictine Brothers to build their college along the Olympia-Steilacoom Road, using accessibility as one argument. Saint Martin’s College opened in 1895. Just a few years earlier and a little to the east, the Woodland School District purchased property for the first time for a schoolhouse and in 1901 a new wing was added. With a growing community population of 600 in 1913, the district replaced it with a four room school. Despite additions, the school wasn’t large enough to hold the influx of new students from the consolidation of school districts and the Children’s Farm Home (founded in 1926 by the Washington Juvenile Protective Society on the Woodland farm property), so the district added yet another four room structure in 1928.

Students also came from the Union Mills area. The Long Lake Mill, an operation begun in 1896, changed its name to the Union Lumber Company in 1899. By 1909 the mill employed 150 people. After a fire laid waste to several of the buildings that same year, the company rebuilt the facility, making it the first mill operation in the United States to be run entirely by electricity.

Saint Martin’s had become a fixture in the community, growing enough to have to replace the original “Old Main” with a new building in 1913. Father Sebastian Ruth brought further attention to the campus in 1922 when he was awarded the call letters “KGY” for the radio station he had started.

A new era began for the Lacey area shortly after 1910 when Frank Mullen opened up his property on Pattison Lake to visitors, eventually creating a resort which offered swimming, boating and cabins for rent. Soon nearby Pattison Lake property owners and those on the other lakes (Hicks, Long and Southwick) followed suit.

In 1917, the Olympia Golf and Country Club took over a portion of the old David Chambers Donation Land Claim. Although Lacey had become a summer resort destination and obviously, it was growing, but in the eyes of one Hicks relative, who used to visit Gwinwood on Hicks Lake, Lacey was still just “a wide spot in the road.”

Polk City Directories from the early 20th century seem to confirm her estimation. The main profession noted for Lacey residents centered on agriculture, in particular berry, poultry and dairy farming. The timber industry also ranked high because of Union Mills.​

The appearance of Lacey, however, did change gradually. A store opened on the extension of Adams (Bowker) Street, replacing the Carpenter store. By 1915, Pacific Avenue was completed, thus eliminating the need for traffic cross railroad tracks twice in a short distance along the highway from Olympia north.

The Fleetwoods and the Russells purchased property along Pacific Avenue in 1920. Eventually the Fleetwoods opened a garage and the Russell family a confectionary. William Ulery added a restaurant and gas station to his property on the corner of Carpenter Road and Pacific in 1925. Gordon Foy moved a store from Adams Street to the corner of Pacific and Lacey Street in 1929.

Adams Acre Tracts, a one street subdivision, had been platted in 1890. It took until 1927 for the adjacent subdivision, Lacey Villas, to appear. Both are now part of the Lacey historical neighborhood. Other Lacey plats with names such as Fleetwood Acres, the Hagen Subdivision and the New State Addition started to dot the area.

More than just appearance changed for Lacey from 1892 to 1948. The community name Woodland gradually disappeared. The post office had taken the name Lacey in 1891. The train depot changed its name to Lacey in 1902 and the school in 1908, leaving only the voting precinct with the name Woodland. In a petition to the Thurston County Commissioners for a change of name to the precinct, the residents explained “The reason for the change is that no such place as Woodland now exists in Thurston County.” By the 1924 election, the last vestige of Woodland had gone; the precinct name was now Lacey.

At the beginning of the time period, the residents of Lacey seemed to be content to be an extension of Olympia. Like most Thurston County high school students, the students from Lacey went to Olympia High School. Olympia remained a destination for shopping and entertainment. But it couldn’t provide all the services this burgeoning community needed. Two disastrous fires in early 1948 prompted the residents to form a volunteer fire department starting in June. By July, they had raised enough money to buy a fire truck and plans were underway to form a fire district. It was just one small step for the community, but it would turn out to be the beginning of a giant leap toward becoming a city.

Find more of Lacey's history here: https://www.thurstontalk.com/?s=history+of+lacey

Sources :
Originally obtained from Thurstontalk.com citing the following sources:

United States Post Office Application, 1891
Washington State Archives, Southwest Regional Branch:
Thurston County Auditor, Plats, 1869-1994
Thurston County Auditor, Original Entries of Land, 1857-1900
Thurston County Auditor, Election Record, 1852-1886
Thurston County Auditor, Marriage Certificates, 1853-2013

Newspapers:
Morning Olympian, April 10, 1891
“School Teacher Wanted,” Columbian, January 15, 1853

Publications:
Himes, George. Transactions of the Fifty-third Annual Reunion of the Oregon Pioneer Association. Portland: F.W. Baltes and Co., 1928