About the Olympia Festival:
To borrow a cliché, the Olympia Community Festival had a humble beginning.
In 2006, ministers and church members from four of the major churches in and around the Olympia community decided to put in to action an idea to rekindle interest in what once was a thriving and close-knit mill village. Their idea was to invite back to the community its beloved “alumni” for a day-long festival featuring music, food, vendors and tours of the historic village. Planners believed the festival also would show that the Olympia neighborhood, today a diverse and distinctive community, still has passion and energy.
Initially, a handful of dedicated organizers begin to pull together a plan for the festival. As word spread of the festival birth, other Olympia residents, formerresidents and friends of the historic community volunteered their time. Organizers picked an April weekend in 2007 for the debut and chose the common area in front of the beautiful Olympia Mill building for the festival site. There, the iconic World War I Doughboy – the bronze statue at OlympiaAvenue and Whaley Street which was erected to honor Olympia’s  military heroes from that war – would watch over the activities.
A unique and major event of the first festival was to be a 30-minute bus tour of the almost mile-deep Olympia rock quarry. Vulcan Stone, quarry owners and a generous sponsor to the festival from the beginning, made the tour a reality and it has become a popular attraction for festival attendees each year.
From the humbled beginnings in 2007, the festival has grown each year in attendance and scope, featuring some of the best local bands and artists. And while the festival will always welcome home those who grew up in the area and love the Olympia community, the organizers want the festival to claim its spot as one of Columbia’s most popular spring-time events.
About Olympia:
Olympia has always made waves, just like the proud ship of the American navy that gave the southeast Columbia community its name.
Columbia’s Olympia community evolved in the late 1800s, it’s birth sparked by William Burroughs Smith Whaley. Whaley, a wealthy Southern businessman, wanting to take advantage of the nearby Columbia canal as an energy power source, picked the rural area to build his giant cotton mill complex. Whaley erected four cotton mills – the Capital City, Richland, Granby and Olympia mills – in what today is the Olympia community. Whaley’s structurally impressive cotton mills were more than state-of-the art manufacturing facilities. The buildings were then, as they are now, considered major commercial architectural achievements. For more than seven decades, the mills produced quality cotton products and a way of life for the community’s families. The employees of the mills were affectionately known as “Lintheads,” a name the whole community adopted with pride.  With the demise of the cotton industry and the closing of the mills, the buildings have been converted to popular housing entities.
While the four cotton mills produced quality material, they also produced a spirited community that would become a Columbia landmark. The cotton mill industry attracted a hardy type of worker and the community’s DNA reflected that strong character. Bonded by the hard work they endured in the mills and the closeness innate to small town living, the people of the Olympia community became an extended family, The community was the epitome of small town America, where doors and windows were left unlocked and neighbors looked out for neighbors.
Area churches, constructed largely by Mr. Whaley in the early 1900s, became important meeting centers for the locals, a sentiment that prevails even today. Many Olympia residents, who long ago left the community, still return each week to attend the churches where their parents and grandparents worshiped.
The Olympia village bore patriotic sons, sending many of its residents off to the country’s wars. Prior to World War II, Olympia residents honored their patriotic sons of the First World War by erecting the statue of the “American Doughboy,” which today stands sentinel over the northern entrance leading into the Olympia village. The Doughboy, with his notable combat pose, remains a proud symbol or the community’s contribution to our military.
While the soul of the Olympia community revolved around the mills and the churches, the heart of the village was the Olympia schools. Students of the first Olympia school met in the “Parker House” in 1901. The Parkers were a prominent Olympia family. The first official school building was erected in the Olympia community in 1910. As in many small communities, the school became not just the educational center, but the social center for its students.
Students of OIympia High School, who were known as the “Red Devils,” gained a reputation for their athletic prowess. Over the years, the school produced state championship teams in football, men and women’s basketball and baseball.
 Perhaps one of the most unique features of the Olympia area – and the least known – is the community’s vast stone quarry. Thousands of tons of rock are still mined each day from the mile-deep quarry, which is located just a handful of miles from the heart of Columbia. Now owned by Vulcan Stone, the quarry has become a favorite attraction at the annual Olympia Festival. Bus tours to the quarry floor are featured during the annual spring festival.
And how did this interesting and diverse community get its name? The community’s founding father, William Whaley, was an admirer of U.S. Navy Admiral George Dewey, hero of the Spanish American War. Likely, it was the admiral’s fighting spirit that Whaley had in mind when he named one of his mills “Olympia” after Admiral Dewey’s flagship, The Olympia.
Part of this event is the run Tom talked about.
This year's Olympia fest is April 20th -- could this possibly be a goal date for us to present our project?
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