The Capital City Window Cleaning Company was one of the longest operating, early Black-owned businesses in Thurston County. Owned by brothers Ulysses and Edward Scott, it was Olympia’s leading window cleaning business from 1919 to 1971.
Capital City Window Cleaning Started by Army Veterans
Brothers Ulysses C. and Edward J. “Scotty” Scott were born in Eastover, South Carolina. Ulysses (1888-1921) was inducted into the army in August 1918 at St. Paul, Minnesota. He served in Company H of the 812nd Pioneer Infantry, a segregated engineering and construction unit. He was promoted to corporal on October 28 and to sergeant three days later. His unit did not serve overseas.
Ulysses was honorably discharged in December and moved to Seattle. Reuniting with his younger brother Edward (1901-1971), who had moved to the west coast at age 16, they decided to try their luck in Olympia.
While the era’s rampant racism limited their career options, the brothers decided to start their own business. Signing it “Sgt. U.C. Scott, M[anager] to emphasize his military service, the brothers first placed an ad for the Capital City Window Washing Company on September 10, 1919, in the Morning Olympian newspaper.
Edward Scott Takes Over Cleaning Business
On January 2, 1921, Edward was driving at Camp Lewis. The road was wet and he was driving too fast. The car overturned into a ditch. Soldiers rushed to help. The two passengers, 29-year-old Jesse A. Barnes and Ulysses later died at Tacoma General Hospital. Edward received a minor head injury, but survived.
No charges were filed over this tragic accident. Barnes, who was also Black, had been hired as a waiter at the Hotel Olympian’s coffee shop only two weeks before.
Edward inherited his brother’s share of the business and renamed it the Capital City Window Cleaning Company. He would operate the business for the rest of his life. Having no office, customers could call him at his home at 509 Capitol Way. He moved to Tumwater in the late 1920s.
In 1923, Scott married Bendina Davis (1890-1941). Born in Kansas City, Missouri, her mother Celia West (c.1860-1935) was born into slavery in Missouri. Celia’s father was her enslaver. She married an English immigrant Union veteran and moved to Seattle. After her husband William (1837-1921) died, she moved into Scott and Bendina’s house in Tumwater.
West’s birth date isn’t certain, but she could not have been 105 when she died like the newspapers claimed. West credited her long life to eating right. Praised as a kind woman and good neighbor, her funeral was widely attended. Her beloved dog Bismarck, a 25-year-old Russian Spitz who was ever by her side, died of grief a few days after her. National newspapers picked up the touching story.
Capital City Window Cleaning
Most of Scott’s window cleaning work would have been for downtown Olympia businesses, though he might also have done work at homes and in Tumwater. He sometimes had assistants, providing employment to other Black people. From around 1930 to 1935, he employed Standford England, who also boarded at his home.
A hard worker, Scott quickly became a recognizable presence in downtown Olympia. “E.J. Scott,” a Daily Olympian reporter noted in the paper’s “Snap Shots” section on January 18, 1936, “at his customary task—cleaning up windows.”
Life was not easy. On New Years Day 1927, Scott was stabbed with a seven-inch knife after an altercation on Seventh Street. His assailant was later convicted of second-degree assault.
Many of his customers paid in cash. This proved dangerous in 1938. As Bendina was getting ready to take $1,465, their hard-earned savings of two years, down to their safe deposit box, two men came to the door claiming to be from a cleaning company.
The armed men attacked her, tied her up and locked her in the closet. Her husband found her two hours later. They had planned to meet downtown to finish off paying for their new refrigerator.
Back In the Window Cleaning Business
Bendina Scott died in 1941. Edward married Iris Smitherman of Seattle a year later. He closed his window cleaning business when he was inducted into the army during World War II. He was soon discharged, however, after new age regulations were put into effect.
Scott went to work operating a steam hammer for the Puget Sound Shipbuilding Company in Olympia. He reopened the Capitol City Window Cleaning Company in 1950. A year later he partnered with H.E. Hazelrigg, adding janitor service and floor waxing. Offering free estimates, their services were available 24-hours a day.
The business relationship between Hazelrigg and Scott soon dissolved and “Scotty” went back to focusing on window cleaning. Working alone became more difficult as he began facing health issues. He had to temporarily close the business several times when he was ill.
In 1954 Scott underwent major surgery. Friends put a notice in the Daily Olympian, asking people to donate to the Thurston-Mason County Blood Bank for him.
Edward “Scotty” Scott continued working until his death on July 2, 1971, 20 days short of his 71st birthday. He was survived by two sisters who lived on the East Coast and their children.
Although he had no children of his own, Scott was widely mourned as both a hard-working business owner and friend by the community he had long called home. Under the headline “Death Claims Scotty,” a Daily Olympian reporter declared, “In recent years Scotty could be found almost every day attending to his window-washing chores downtown, a smile and a friendly greeting for everyone.”
