In this 1910 image, one of the earliest of the Olympic Club, the neighboring building (today's Olympic Club Hotel) has yet to be built. Note the Club's café is on the left side of the building and the bar on the right. Is that a display case or a barbeque standing in the vacant lot?

This view of the 1909 Memorial Day parade marching south on Tower Avenue in Centralia is the earliest image we have of the Olympic Club. The street is dirt and the hotel that has stood next to the Club since 1913, is still four years from construction in this photo. Here, the north bay of the Club houses shelves of liquor. A year or so later, the Olympic Club café would take over the space.

The Olympic Club is seen here in its original incarnation and location. It opened in 1907 on Main Street, just around the corner from today's Club on Tower Avenue. A 1908 fire, that destroyed many buildings on east side of Tower between Main and Pine streets, prompted the Oly Club's move.

Storm clouds still linger after soaking Tower Avenue, around 1906. The view is to the north. Main Street intersects just beyond the first telephone pole. The Olympic Club's predecessor stands on the right just beyond Main Street. The building, along with all of its neighbors on that side of the block, were destroyed by a disastrous fire in 1908.

The calling card for The Oxford, which operated in 1906-07 on the future site of the Olympic Club. The Nugent brothers ran their raucous saloon with few rules, and were closed down because of that practice. The name was revived though by what is today's Olympic Club Hotel. Prior to McMenamins' renovation of that building, it was known as the Oxford Hotel.

Early denizens of the Oly Club, circa 1910. The cook stands outside the café, while the houseboys stand in front of the central "Billiards" door. Note the bar sign hanging on the right. In about three years, the Club would undergo a major interior renovation, complete with mahogany paneling, beveled glass mirrors and Tiffany light fixtures.

On the nation's first Armistice Day, November 11, 1919, violence erupted in Centralia arising from the community's volatile relations with the resident members of the radical labor organization, the Industrial Workers of the World (aka The Wobblies). The resulting six deaths, including one lynching, of several recently returned servicemen sent shock waves around the world. One prominent gathering place for the Wobblies during this period was the Olympic Club (its proprietors supported their cause and welcomed their patronage). This rare image shows the memorial procession through Centralia on November 14, honoring the veterans killed three days earlier.

Saloon man extraordinaire, Jack Scuitto, stand behind the bar of his newly, and extravagantly, remodeled Olympic Club, 1913.

The reason for the Olympic Club's grand 1913 remodel was the appearance earlier in that year of this man and his lavishly appointed New Tourist Bar immediately next door. In this 1913 photo, A. J. Forgues stands in front of his newly opened venture, which occupied the south storefront of the just completed hotel, today's Olympic Club Hotel.

What has captured their attention? Well-dressed men assemble outside the Olympic Club, circa 1914. Are they waiting for a parade or horse race? The Hotel Crawford next door is today's Olympic Club Hotel. The New Tourist Bar still occupies its southern storefront.

A. J. Forgues, whose New Tourist Bar had earlier occupied the southern storefront of this hotel, took over management of the hotel around 1916. He converted the bar, closed by state Prohibition, into the hotel's lobby. Forgues' young son can be seen in the open, second-story window.

A. J. Forgues, proprietor of the New Tourist Bar, sits in his buggy outside his business, circa 1915. Within months, Washington State's ban of alcohol forced the closure of Forgue's business. He rebounded by taking over management of the hotel.

This 1916 article was the first of many headlines chronicling the bootlegging activities of the Olympic Club during the Dry Years.

This 1916 arrest warrant was likely the first served upon Jack Scuitto and his Olympic Club for suspected bootlegging activity, but definitely not the last.

John L. "Jack" Sciutto knew the ropes. He had been a barman in British Columbia during the Klondike gold rush and ran a brisk, rough-and-ready saloon business in the coal-mining town of Rosalia, Washington, before coming to Centralia in 1907. His success allowed him admittance into Centralia's elite, however, his loyalties, not to mention his bread-and-butter, remained with his blue-collar customers.

A. J. Forgues, manager of the Hotel Oxford, now the Olympic Club Hotel, mans the desk in the hotel's lobby, accompanied by his young son. This same room had earlier been Forgue's New Tourist Bar until Prohibition forced it to close.

Hotel Oxford manager, A. J. Forgues, stands with his daughter outside the hotel, circa 1920. She was born in the hotel in 1916.

The headline from this June 17, 1921 Seattle paper screams out the news of the capture of the notorious train bandit, Roy Gardner, at the Olympic Club Hotel.

The Olympic Club Café offered much like what a logger of that era could expect from his camp dining hall: nothing fancy, but good, hearty food. Today, a larger commercial kitchen for the Olympic Club occupies much of this space. The great back bar seen in this shot, now graces the Backstage Bar at McMenamins Bagdad Theater in Portland.

Louis Sonney, the Centralia Cop who captured Roy Gardner in the Olympic Club Hotel in 1921, quickly realized he had much better and more interesting prospects in re-telling the details of the bandit's capture to audiences then remaining in law enforcement. So, Louis hung up his badge and began road-showing around the country. This newspaper clipping from around 1922 features the former cop with his car on which he was marking his route from one state to the next.

After capturing Roy Gardner, Louis Sonney went from road-showing to filmmaking as a way to tell the story of the capture. Sonney went on to be a very successful producer in Hollywood. This movie poster, from about 1923, advertises one of the first silent pictures made about Gardner and Sonney. The theater was in Kelso, Washington, not far from Castle Rock and Centralia, where the exploits of 1921 had taken place.

By the time of Roy Gardner's capture in Centralia, the train bandit was front-page news all around the country. He had developed a Robin Hood-like appeal. This illustration, which ran in the San Francisco Bulletin, depicts the arrest of Gardner in the Olympic Club Hotel.

Roy Gardner arrived in Centralia in mid June 1921, he came across wanted posters like this one, prompting to create a disguise comprised of bandages on his face and hands.

Louis the Cop, around 1921. Louis Sonney was a coal miner holding the record for most coal mined in an 8-hour period, when he was recruited by the Centralia police department to put on a badge and help clean up the town.

Making headlines again, the Olympic Club was appearing on the front page of the local papers with some regularity during Prohibition. One day, the papers reported the raid and closure of the Club; the next day, a story about it's reopening was almost certain.

Mayor George Barner, center, stands with religious and temperance club leaders outside the Centralia police station amidst his 1923 campaign to clean up the city. Some of the bottles on the curb had been confiscated during a raid of the Olympic Club (many more bottles remained at the club).

With a grimace and a steely glare, Jack Scuitto sits on his front steps in the mid 1920s. Prohibition was a very lucrative time for him and his Olympic Club. In 1927, the heat from the federal revenuers became so intense that Jack, it seems, struck a deal. He sold his interest in the Club to a junior partner and split for Canada. After about a year, he was back, opening a card room next door to his former club. The word was that he actually oversaw the operations of both businesses for years to come.

A festive view of Centralia's bustling Tower Avenue, circa 1934.The Olympic Club and Oxford Hotel are visible on the right amidst the flags and signs, and alongside the delivery truck.

Longtime barber, Jim Fasano, had a shop in the south storefront of the Olympic Club Hotel in the 1940s. He recalled Friday nights being his busiest time of his work week. Loggers came straight from the camps to his shop to get a shave, haircut and shower (the latter was available in a backroom of Fasano's shop). Then they were ready for a night of cards, pool and drinking next door at the Oly Club.

Art Vogel first came to the Oly Club in the ‘teens as a customer. At the time he was working in the nearby rail yard shops. He went on the Club's payroll before the decade was out. Vogel was the recipient of Jack Scuitto's share in the business in 1927, some say because the younger man had taken the fall for bootlegging charges brought against the Club. As time went on, Vogel became known as the "Old Man" around the place, but he was always the authority, and the man to beat in poker games. Art died in the early 1960s and his two sons took over the business. McMenamins acquired the Club from the widow of one of the sons in 1996.

After more than 50 years, the lights still blazed at the Olympic Club in the 1960s, but its clientele had begun to age.

In the 1970s, photographer Don Iverson gained the trust of men of the Olympic Club to the extent that they allowed him to photograph them in what until then had been their private men's club. Iverson's images honestly and artfully captured the integrity of the aging workers and building. The Associated Press picked up his photos and they were reprinted in newspapers around the country in 1974 and 1975. In this image, there's a feeling that these once young, workers of the woods, now are biding time as spectators.

In this Don Iverson image, the grand old Round Oak stove still stands resolute, if slightly battered and worn, much like the men gathered around it.

For years women were nowhere to be found in the Olympic Club. The sign above the entrance proclaiming, "Women's patronage not solicited," was no joke. Beginning in the 1960s, when women first appeared within this realm, first as employees of the café, then as bartenders, and finally (gasp) as customers, they were viewed with confusion, amazement and derision, as this photo captures so well.

Who knew that some beat up shoes, a bar rail and a stool could make for such an interesting, artful composition?

This Don Iverson image is a remarkable study in texture and lighting. (Also, don't you want to holler at the man that he's got only another second or two before the cigarette burns his fingers?!)

Late night at the Oly Club Café. Kind of reminiscent of Edward Hopper's Nighthawk, though not as bleak.

His eyes and steadiness may not be what the used to be, but most days he still makes the shot.

Sturdy old men, sturdy old tables.

A chair, a slumping cushion, a pitted wall, a tiled floor, a spittoon, and a "trash only" can... elements of a short story? In Don Iverson's photographic hands, it would seem so.

The shapes, patterns and geometry of the Olympic Club's poolroom are the subject of this 1970s Don Iverson image.

A classic subject, old men and checkers, played out in the Olympic Club, 1974.

Looking like Paul Bunyan in his later years, this former logger warms his old bones by the Round Oak.

"Last round," would seem to be the appropriate title of this photo, the only image we've found of a poker game being played at the Olympic Club. The players and the place are showing their age. Gambling was banned in Washington State in the mid 1970s, bringing a halt to the Club's most lucrative and best-known feature.

Jeanne Heier was an Oly Club pioneer, becoming the first full-time bartender in 1980. She quickly became a friend a fixture of the place, remaining at her post nearly ‘til the time McMenamins acquired the place in 1996.

The original 1908 tile floor of the Olympic Club entrance was just one of the features of the storied property that caught the attention of Mike and Brian McMenamin in 1996.

In 1996 when Mike and Brian McMenamin looked at the Olympic Club, a rich, dark patina and years of tales encased the place.

Reminders of the past such as this, faded though they might have been, were still ever present in 1996.

Angles, neons and water stains were all part of the intrigue that attracted McMenamins to the Olympic Club.

Beginning in the 1940s, Don Shultz got to know everybody and practically every inch of the Olympic Club, from working as a café waiter, shoe shiner, card room houseboy and pool room clerk. Here Don is in the hotel room named for him.

Jeanne Heier, right, and her daughter, at the grand opening of the Olympic Club Hotel in 2002. Jeanne, the Olympic Club's first full-time female bartender, stands in the hotel room named for her.

One of the most beloved and storied characters of the Olympic Club was longtime card dealer, Lucien Christen. A good and fair man, Christen just didn't have respect for laws regulating his interests, such as gambling and bootlegging. The one-time Chicago resident and employee of Al Capone has a room named in his honor at the Olympic Club Hotel. In this photo from 2002, his children gather in that room.

One of the better card players to frequent the Olympic Club in the second half of the last century was Mike Solomon. Being such a regular, Mike got to know the Club's shrewd and savvy owner, Art Vogel. When Mike decided to open a club of his own, Art gave him lots of useful advice, not the least of which was, "be careful what you do, son."  Mike is seen here with his wife in the hotel room named for him.