lympia Oyster Company has cultivated shellfish on our privately owned tidelands since incorporation in the Washington Territory in 1878  and has been a major producer of the Olympia Oyster since that time.

We cultivate 700 acres of marine farmland, located in southern Puget Sound and Hood Canal, and employ 50 people, who cultivate, harvest, process, and sell oysters and clams from this unique area.

Our fine oysters and clams are raised in the waters of the famous Totten Inlet Estuary, of Southern Puget Sound.  

Totten Inlet shorelines are relatively "undeveloped".  The shellfish growing waters are considered by state and federal health agencies as being of excellent quality.

The Olympia Oyster is very small...even full grown, the shell is approximately the size of a 50 cent piece.  Nearly 2,000 meats are required to fill one gallon, or 250 per pint.  Being so small and delicate, they must be harvested by hand (with the aid of a long-tined fork), at low tide and transported to a sorting house where the fingernail size seed is gently separated from the market size Olympia Oysters.  The seed is returned to the dike and market Olympias are transferred to the shucking plant to be opened:  one at a time, by hand, carefully washed, packaged and shipped to consumers.  This method has not changed in 100 years.

The natural habitat of the Olympia Oyster, the oyster native to the Western United States and Canadian marine shorelines, ranged from Southern California to Southeastern Alaska.  The center of the native oyster population was in the estuaries of Washington State...Willapa Harbor (or Shoalwater Bay, as it was then known) and Southern Puget Sound.

In the mid-1800's when commercial fishing and the lumber businesses were in their infancy, the native oyster industry began.  Washington Territorial politicians were so impressed with this mollusk they dubbed it the "Olympia Oyster" in the legislature of 1889.  Not wanting to leave the source of this tasty morsel, they elected to maintain Olympia as the capitol city of Washington.  These tiny oysters were such a delicacy during the Gold Rush days, it took only a short time to overharvest and deplete the beds within San Francisco Bay.  

Next Shoalwater Bay supplied fleets of sailing ships with native oyster cargos bound exclusively for California.  Again, this source was soon exhausted and the oyster producers of Puget Sound began trying to meet the needs of the insatiable San Francisco market.  By this time several things had changed.  Railroads had been established and shipments south were by rail express moving greater quantities at a faster pace.  Also, there had developed a vigorous local Washington state market.  The Puget Sound growers, to protect themselves from the mistake of overharvesting, invented a crop management system to insure a continuous supply of Olympia Oysters. 

Around the turn of the twentieth century, the industry developed a unique system of dike construction, which is still in use.  The bottom (or tideland floor) of the head of Totten Inlet is covered with a series of man-made, multilevel dikes of cement and/or wood construction, filled and leveled with shell and gravel, retaining two to three inches of seawater at low tide.  The retained seawater provides a buffer for seed and market sized Olympia Oysters from extreme variations of temperature, as well as providing a more complete and protected marine ecological community of plants and animals.

Maximum production, for the Olympia Oyster industry, was reached in the mid 1920's.  Suddenly a rapid decline occurred, following the construction of a pulp mill in Shelton, which commenced operation in 1927.

The oyster producers believe the pollution problems, caused by the pulp mill (which closed in 1957), have abated and the seawater has, once again, become ecologically stable.  Olympia Oyster production has returned, allowing us to re-establish the market by placing this product in the finer restaurants of the Northwest and a few selected locations throughout the United States, and beyond.

Today, the majority of industry is located in Totten Inlet and Skookum Inlet in Mason County...southwest of the Seattle-Tacoma area.  Totten Inlet Olympia Oyster growers own their production tidelands and aggressively promote pollution control policies administered by state and county agencies.

Consumers may be comforted by the fact there has been no serious illnesses attributed to shellfish produced in Totten Inlet.

Executive chefs consider Olympia Oysters a gourmet  class food.  Some  chefs present Olympia Oysters in cocktails  with selected sauces and served in their own nectar.  Other chefs recommend adding Olympia Oysters to omelet recipes.  Gourmet diners agree the flavor is fantastic and the meal delicious.

World famous and world class are indeed appropriate praises for the Olympia Oyster.  World famous for its diminutive size and excellent flavor.  World class because despite its size, it is the monarch of all oysters and once you experience the best, everything else pales in comparison.  You deserve the best! 

Please contact us for additional information or shipments.