Olympic Peninsula & Washington Coast - Washington, Oregon and the Pacific Northwest - page 251

fuelled boomtown at the nautical entrance to busy Puget Sound that went bust in the
'great panic of 1893.' Port Townsend's loss was a catastrophe for the local businessmen
of the day, but the cloud had a long-term silver lining. After years of dire poverty when
there wasn't even enough money to demolish the old unused buildings, Port Townsend
experienced a flowery 1970s renaissance. The rebirth, based on urban rejuvenation and
tourism, has endowed the Northwest with a frozen-in-time slice of redbrick Victorian ar-
chitecture caught at its 1890s high watermark.
WORTH A TRIP
CENTRALIA STOPOVER
The overriding reason to make this rather mundane mining and lumber town a pit
stop on the long drive (or train ride) north or south is to stay at a converted brothel,
the Olympic Club Hotel ( 360-736-5164; 112 N Tower Ave; bunks/queens/kings with shared bath
$40/60/70; ) , a 'venue hotel' where you can eat, sleep, drink, shoot billiards,
listen to music and go to the cinema, all in the same evening and all without having
to leave the hotel. The Olympic Club dates from 1908, when it opened as a 'gentle-
men's resort' designed to satisfy the various drinking, gambling and sexual vices of
transient miners and loggers. Portland's McMenamins has restored the brothel to
its former glory, complete with creaking floorboards, art-deco murals, bar, billiard
room, restaurant and small movie theater, where friendly wait staff bring in food
orders during the movie as guests recline in sofas and armchairs. Upstairs, atmo-
spheric bedrooms sport arty graffiti chronicling the misdemeanors of past guests.
If you're overnighting you can enjoy a hearty brunch at the acclaimed Berry
Fields (201 S Pearl St; mains $10) , situated in Centralia's biggest antique mall, where the
cinnamon buns are the size of soccer balls.
Sights
Port Townsend has a large stash of handsome Victorian buildings dating from the 1860s
to about 1893 (when the economy collapsed). Styles run the gamut of Italian Renais-
sance, Queen Anne, Greek Revival and Gothic. The Victorian shop fronts of Water St
were mostly built in a manic boom between 1886 and 1891.
Art galleries are another of the town's fortes and you can pick up a map of the best, all
clustered within four blocks of the ferry dock, at the visitor center. Higher up on the
bluff, be sure to stop and admire the 100ft clock tower of the Jefferson County Court-
house (1892) and also Manresa Castle (now a hotel).