WHO'S ANNA?
The simple answer is nobody knows!
Named by Commander Charles Wilkes as part of his local 1841 survey expedition, the south bay of Hood Canal located at the Great Bend has been known at various times as Anna’s Bay, Annos Bay, and Anna Bay. At best guess, it seems that sometime about 1872, the apostrophe disappeared (not unlike what happened to Hood’s Canal). The identity of Anna however, remains a mystery.
"Nothing," Wilkes wrote "can be more striking than the beauty of these waters without a shoal or rock or any danger for the whole length of this Internal Navigation, the finest in the world.”
It was this beauty that began to attract artists soon after the turn of the last century, including a young Orre Nelson Nobles. He first arrived on the shores of Union as a 17-year-old in the summer of 1913. He had booked passage on the sternwheeler S.S. Chippewa from Tacoma with 675 other sightseers, kicking off what was to be not only a lifetime of travel, but a lifelong romance with the south shore of Hood Canal. After his graduation from Bellingham Normal, he returned to teach in the one-room school at Tahuya (on the north shore) from 1914-1917.
In 1924 using salvaged stain-glassed windows, doors and beams, and even a recovered pipe organ, he built his famous Music Room at Olympus Manor. Here Nobles held dramatic readings and operatic concerts, attracting musicians and scholars as well as lovers of music and art. In the summer of 1925, Nobles finally achieved his long-sought vision for a center on Hood Canal that would play host to a variety of arts and performance activities. The Seattle Times and the Tacoma Sunday Ledger both featured extensive accounts of the inaugural festivities, which ran from July 25 through August 10 that year. Performances were coordinated by members of the Cornish College of the Arts and University of Washington music and drama faculty, as well as Seattle baritone George Nelson, and the Mendelsohn Trio.
In succeeding years it became common for professional musicians, en route to performances in Seattle and Tacoma, to schedule a visit and often a performance or two here on Anna’s Bay. Until the loss of the hall to accidental fire in 1952, the performance activities at Olympus Manor became a year-round (rather than strictly summertime) event, and the hub of a vibrant arts colony - our state’s first. The community of artists, musicians and arts patrons that were originally attracted by the area’s spectacular scenery went on to become an important part of the early culture and character of Mason County, enriching the community in many ways.
We at the Anna’s Bay are working to revitalize this proud legacy, and to make our community a showcase of the many benefits of music.
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