Kokaido

By Shannon Advincula, Eastside Heritage Center Intern

The Japanese characters written on the back of these wooden slatted folding chairs indicate that they had been used at the “Bellevue Japanese People’s Clubhouse (ベルビュウ日[本]人会).” Kokaido, the Bellevue Japanese Community Clubhouse (or Community Hall), had been established at 101st Avenue NE and NE 11th Street in 1932, and served as a hub for the Japanese American community on the Eastside.[1]

2008.014.001

Kokaido Chairs, donated to the Eastside Heritage Center by Sumie Akizuki.

Kokaido hosted a plethora of community activities, such as business meetings, Buddhist and Christian church services, flower arranging classes, movies, Japanese language classes, shibais (plays), various sports, and picnics. An article published in the Japanese-American Courier in 1933 describes how the Japanese American community in Bellevue used the space almost daily: “On Saturdays it housed the Japanese Language School. On Sundays it housed church groups. And the rest of the days of the week are filled with activities such as judo, basketball and meetings of all organizations. Occasionally parties and movies are held."[2]

Image: L 89.029.002.

Photograph of the dedication of Kokaido, the Bellevue Japanese Community Clubhouse. Community members stand in front of the clubhouse building which had stood at 101st Avenue NE and NE 11th Street.

Prior to World War II, the Japanese American population in Bellevue numbered over 60 families and over 300 people, comprising 15% of the general population and 90% of the agricultural workforce.[3] The Bellevue Japanese American community pooled together donations to purchase two acres in what is now downtown Bellevue and built Kokaido in 1930.[4] The dedication gathering in 1932 was attended by an estimated 500 people, including Bellevue's leading citizens. Later, in 1937, a second building was added, providing more room for community space and a worship center.

J 89.04.03

Women's basketball team, c. 1930’s. Photograph taken at the Japanese Community Clubhouse in Bellevue.

At the time of the clubhouse’s construction, Tom Matsuoka and the Seinenkai, a club of Japanese American youths comprised of Bellevue Nisei (second-generation Americans of Japanese ancestry born in the U.S.), advocated for the building to be built 60 feet high in order to accommodate indoor basketball activities.[5] Both men and women participated in indoor and outdoor sports and recreational activities that centered around Kokaido, forming Japanese American Bellevue teams and participating in regional tournaments for various sports including basketball, baseball, and the Japanese martial arts of  judo and kendo.

By January 1932, the Bellevue Dojo which hosted judo activities had about thirty-five members, which was about half of the total membership of the Bellevue Seinenkai. The judo club even organized its own events, including taffy pulls, roller skating and Halloween parties, Japanese movie nights, picnics, and demonstrations at the local high school and Bellevue’s annual strawberry festival.[6] The venue for many of these activities and tournaments was the Japanese Community Hall in Bellevue.

J 89.04.01

Photograph of the championship Bellevue baseball team at an annual three day tournament for the Puget Sound Area Japanese teams, held in Seattle c. 1930’s. Tokio Hirotaka was the team coach, and is standing on the right in the back row.

But the bustling daily life of Japanese Americans would ultimately be suddenly disrupted and irrevocably altered. On the evening of December 7, 1941, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the FBI started arresting Japanese American community leaders in Bellevue: the schoolmaster of the Japanese language school, the head of the Japanese businessmen’s association, and Tom Matsuoka, who was president of the Bellevue Vegetable Growers Association. The Seattle Times wrote in a 1997 investigative article that, “[Their] arrest was one of many mistakes the FBI made in those sweeps… It was clear that the three were targeted mainly to decapitate, as it were, the Nikkei community, not because of any actual threat they might pose.”[7]

443 Eastside men, women and children, including 300 of them from Bellevue, were forced into incarceration camps until the end of the war. They were forced to vacate their personal properties, and Kokaido was left abandoned without its community. After the war, many Japanese American families did not return to Bellevue, and the approximately 20 families of the original 70 that did had a difficult time rebuilding their land, businesses, and community.[8]

In 1950, the clubhouse building was sold by the Bellevue Nisei Club, Inc. to the Board of Missions of the Augustana Lutheran Church for $11,000. Pastor Olson of the Lutheran congregation recorded that, “the Japanese-American group had others who wanted to purchase the property, but declined all the offers because they were from businessmen who wanted it for commercial purposes. They were happy to know this sacred property would be used for a church.” Through the purchase agreement, a Japanese American community member named H. Kizu was also provided living quarters at the church and employed. Ultimately, the building was sold again in 1964, and eventually demolished.[9]

Asaichi Tsushima, in his memoir Pre-WWII History of Japanese Pioneers in the Clearing and Development of Land in Bellevue, wrote of the closure of Kokaido, saying, “One of the changes at the end of WWII that saddened and disappointed me was the sale of the Japanese Community Clubhouse and property where so much of our lives had been centered.”[10]

J 89.07.01

Photo of "Dedication: A Play,” possibly from the Kokiado. Copied from Asaichi Tsushima, "Pre World War II HIstory of Japanese Pioneers in the Clearing and Development of Land in Bellevue," 1939.

The economic, social, and cultural life of the Japanese American community in Bellevue was sustained and enriched in part by everyday community and recreational activities such as those hosted by Kokaido. These chairs and photographs are a reminder of the large and vibrant Japanese community of farmers, businessmen, and families that helped to establish and shape Bellevue; a community which almost disappeared and was never the same after WWII incarceration.

Footnotes:

[1] Asaichi Tsushima, Pre-WWII History of Japanese Pioneers in the Clearing and Development of Land in Bellevue (1952).

[2] Japanese-American Courier, 1 Jan 1933.

[3] Publication of the Seattle Times: A Hidden Past. c. 2000

[4] Bomgren, Marilyn, “The Bellevue Japanese American Clubhouse: My Story of Life in the Bellevue Japanese American Clubhouse,” 2008.

[5] Matsuoka, Tom. “Tom Matsuoka Interview.” Courtesy of Densho, 1998. https://ddr.densho.org/interviews/ddr-densho-1000-47-16/?tableft=segments

[6] Svinth, Joseph R., Letter to the Marymoor Museum, 1998.

[7] Keiko Morris, Seattle Times Eastside bureau 8/20/97

[8] The Seattle Times, “A Hidden Past: An Exploration of Eastside History”. 12/1997 - 1/2000.

[9] Bomgren, “The Bellevue Japanese American Clubhouse,” 2008.

[10] Asaichi Tsushima, Pre-WWII History of Japanese Pioneers in the Clearing and Development of Land in Bellevue (1952).

Bellevue - an Eastside Cornucopia!

BY BARB WILLIAMS, EASTSIDE HERITAGE CENTER VOLUNTEER

For thousands of years, Native Americans harvested the abundance of natural foods on the Eastside of Lake Washington. Good water, soil, and climate made Bellevue ideal for cultivated farming. Downtown was originally covered with huge, old-growth trees. Once logged, they were replaced with farmlands. Much of Bellevue’s success and growth is founded in its agricultural roots as an Eastside Cornucopia; a Horn of Plenty.

Hand drawn map of Bellevue, highlighting agricultural lands. Maker unknown, date unknown. (Reference - Vertical Files)

Early European settlers farmed to support their daily needs followed by cash crop farming for markets. A multitude of successful animal, fruit and vegetable farms sprang up and reached their peak between 1920 and 1942. The distribution of vegetables, fruits, bulb, and ornamental plants to local, national, and international markets was expanded after 1904 when the Northern Pacific Railroad connected Eastside produce to Seattle and beyond. Construction and operation of the Bellevue Growers Association Packing Shed (c. 1933) alongside the NPR railroad tracks at Midlakes significantly enhanced the transportation of the agricultural abundance of Bellevue farms.

In 1889, Ove and Mary Larsen gained title to 160 acres of land at Larsen Lake; a favorite gathering place for Native Americans who had harvested wild cranberries and blue huckleberries there. Ove did the same selling the berries for 50 cents a gallon. He worked at the Newcastle coal mines and farmed on weekends. In 1913, he sold half the property to the Aries brothers; Louis, Tony, and Albert from South Park, Seattle. Their property stretched from Larsen Lake to NE 8th. They grew cabbage, corn, squash, peas, wax beans, cauliflower, carrots, potatoes, celery, and iceberg lettuce; the latter for which they became famous. It was distributed to local, Philippine Islands, Alaska, and Yukon Territory markets. At peak production, they shipped seven railroad carloads of iceberg lettuce and 4,000 sacks of potatoes.   

Aries family harvesting lettuce, 1918. (OR/L 79.79.232)

In 1912, J. Kelfner sold Island Belle grapes grown on his farm at 108th Avenue and SE 8th Street. In the 1930s, he sold nine tons of grapes to one buyer. Adolph Hennig also grew Island Belle grapes at his vineyard on Clyde Hill. He designed and built equipment for pasteurizing and extracting juice. This proved beneficial in 1929 when fresh grapes were selling for only 1 cent per pound, but juice could be stored and sold year-round.

Mary Cruse and Grace Hill in Baker House daffodil garden, 1912. (2001.114.001)

Apples, cherries, pears, and strawberries were profitable cash crops. With the help of Japanese farmers between the 1920s to 1940s, the abundance of strawberries became a profitable and popular crop for Bellevue. Fields of strawberries stretched over the hills providing an incentive for the Strawberry Festival which began in 1925. After WWII, blueberries replaced strawberries as the popular fruit. In preserving this heritage, the City of Bellevue presently owns and operates U-Pick blueberry fields at Larsen Lake and Overlake blueberry farms.

Delkin Bulb Farms, c.1990s (2016.010.004)

Following the example of successful bulb farms in Bellingham, bulb farming was begun in Bellevue in the 1920s. The Boddy family cultivated vegetables and bulb plants growing cucumbers and Easter Lilies in their greenhouses on Hunt’s Point. William Cruse grew fruits and daffodils. His home, the Baker house, and gardens were located where the QFC now stands. Frederick J. Delkin, the owner and operator of Delkin Farms wholesale nursery business, established a warehouse accessible to the railroad tracks at Midlakes in 1926. At one time, he shipped an entire railroad carload of iris and narcissus bulbs to New York.

Perhaps this shipment included bulbs from Cecelia and Frederick Winters bulb farm at the Mercer Slough. Originally they grew vegetables, the abundance of which they sold to summer people at Beaux Arts. In 1924, they switched to iris and daffodil bulbs grown in greenhouses. Andre Ostbo bought several acres of their land in the 1930s and started a successful rhododendron business called “The King of Shrubs” for which he became famous. The Winters’ Spanish-eclectic style house, built in the late 1920s, is presently owned by the City of Bellevue and located on Bellevue Way. Remnants of the many greenhouses and escaped rhododendrons can be seen along the Ostbo Loop trail as can the sinking boiler house used to send steam through pipes to the greenhouses.

It is possible that Andre knew Cal and Harriet Shorts who bought a farm on Main Street in 1946. Their specialty was rhododendrons. In 1984, the Shorts donated their 7.5 acres and home to the City of Bellevue for a park and botanical garden. Today, the Bellevue Botanical Garden is open to the public year-round with the Shorts house at its center. Thanks to the generosity of the Shorts, and visionaries like Iris and Bob Jewett, the Garden is a treasure that reflects the bountiful agricultural possibilities and heritage of Bellevue: an Eastside Cornucopia. 

Resources:

Eastside Heritage Center archives

Lake Washington the Eastside. by Eastside Heritage Center, Arcadia Publishing, 2006

Bellevue, Its First 100 Years.  by Lucile McDonald,  Bellevue Historical Society, 2000

The Bellevue Botanical Garden: celebrating the first 15 years.  by Marty Wingate, The Bellevue Botanical Garden Society,  2007  

Japanese Farmers Post WWII

BY Barb williams, EASTSIDE HERITAGE CENTER VOLUNTEER

After four difficult years at Pinedale, Tule Lake, and Minidoka incarceration camps some Japanese farmers began returning to their pre-WWII farms in Bellevue. Approximately 20 families of the original 70 chose to return.  Those who had leased their farms prior to the war often did not come back. Those having land ownership, often did. However, life was not easy and they had a difficult time recovering their land, jobs, lives, and a sense of Japanese community which had been so strong prior to the War. Their courage, skills as farmers, and contributions to their community have been recognized in multiple ways.  Bellevue is a member of the Sister Cities project, Yao Japan being Bellevue’s sister city.  

The Suguro family had farmed in Midlakes near Lake Bellevue. Takayoshi and Michi Suguro’s daughter, Sumie, remembers how difficult “it was to come back to a farm in shambles and to return to an unlivable house. The people who lived in our home even had chickens running through the house and our roof was leaking. The Takeshitas, our neighbors, were so kind in having us stay with them until we could clean our house.” Sumie, like other returning Japanese children, had to adjust to attending an almost all-white school after spending four years with only Japanese people. It was a lonely time for her being the only Japanese girl in the class. While going through high school she worked as a live-in nanny to help her family and graduated in 1947. She is proud to say that her father was the last Japanese immigrant (Issei) to farm in Bellevue. He retired in 1953, when the family sold their property to Safeway. Their neighbors, the Takeshita family, had bought their property in 1919 so were able to return to their home and farm; both suffered from neglect. Times had changed making it difficult for Japanese farmers to realize a profit. As land values went up they began to sell their lands to developers. In 1953, the Takeshita family sold their land to the Great Northern Railroad.

Ron Wurzer/Seattle Times: John Matsuoka stands amid his cornfield in Bellevue, where he has farmed for nearly 50 years. (8/20/1997)

Among those to return were John Matsuoka. However, his brother, Tom (Takeo) Matsuoka, a prominent leader in the pre-WWII Bellevue Japanese community, did not. Instead, he continued to farm in Montana where he had been sent during the war. John, who grew up farming in Kent had been sent to Minidoka. In the 1950s he came to Bellevue where he and his wife lived for over 60 years. At the age of 52, he went to work for the Bellevue Post Office from which he retired after 20 years of service. He also leased 3.5 acres of farmland from the Bellevue Parks and Community Services Department at 156th Avenue SE and SE 16th Street. He grew potatoes, brussels sprouts, lettuce and corn. He became famous for his sweet Silver Corn which he sold on Sundays. The Seattle Times and Journal American dubbed him the “Corn Man of Bellevue”. He loved his old tractor and farming. In 1997, at age 82, farming had become a hobby for John; one of the last of a generation of Japanese-American farmers in Bellevue. 

Asaichi Tsushima, a pre-WWII Bellevue Issei landowner and community leader, returned to Bellevue. In 1929, he had been the first teacher at the Japanese language school. In 1952, he wrote an extensive documentary, “Pre-WWII History of Japanese Pioneers in the Clearing and Development of Land in Bellevue”. Much of the information is written from memory because many of his notes were lost during incarceration. The document is a treasure; a fine contribution to the legacy of the Japanese pioneers in Bellevue.

Greg Gilbert/Seattle Times: Joan Seko, 80, recalls the tireless work of creating and maintaining her family’s traditional Japanese garden on Bellevue’s Phantom Lake (9/5/2017)

Reminders of the Japanese farmers and their talent was apparent in the beauty of Seko Garden. Joan Seko and her late husband (owners of the Bush Garden restaurant in Seattle) developed a traditional Japanese garden that sloped to the shores of Phantom Lake. By 2017 at age 80 Joan could no longer maintain the grounds. She was hoping to find a way to preserve the garden once she moved off the property.

Duke’s Bellevue Bar & Grill, Barrier Motors, and the Safeway Distribution Center are located on lands formerly owned and farmed by Japanese farmers. Alice Ito’s family was one of them. In 1999, she volunteered with the Eastside Japanese American History Project that designed a traveling exhibit of photographs and text to be sent to libraries, schools, shopping malls, and museums around Washington State. 

Teresa Tamura/Seattle Times: Alice Ito interviewed Japanese Americans, including her father who is pictured on the computer screen, as a part of an Eastside history project that spans 1898 through the 1950s (4/15/1999)

Rick Schweinhart/Journal: A display about the history of the Eastside Japanese Americans is open at Bellevue City Hall. The exhibit documents the thriving Japanese American community before World War II (4/21/1999)

Michal Friesen, third grade teacher at Woodridge Elementary in Bellevue, teaches her students about Japanese American history (4/2022). She and her fellow teachers notify families before they begin teaching the unit. They stick to the facts, use age-appropriate clips of interviews and picture books. She feels that “You cannot tell the history of Bellevue without talking about the Japanese immigrants and the community that helped form it.”

Resources

Eastside Heritage Center Archives: obituaries, newspaper articles, Sumie Akizuki, Rose Yabuki Matshushita

Publication, The Seattle Times, “A Hidden Past: An Exploration of Eastside History”. 12/1997 - 1/2000

Asaichi Tsushima, Pre-WWII History of Japanese Pioneers in the Clearing and Development of Land in Bellevue,  1992

Japanese Farmers in Bellevue (1898 - 1942)

BY Barb williams, EASTSIDE HERITAGE CENTER VOLUNTEER

Early Japanese pioneers in Bellevue often lived in abandoned Indian dwellings. They mostly worked on the railroads, in the sawmills and clearing lands for agriculture. They cleared Clyde Hill, Wilburton Hill, Hunts Point and Yarrow Point to name a few. Cutting the trees and dynamiting the huge stumps was a dangerous and a slow process. The area was covered with dense forests of old growth trees sometimes five feet in diameter. It could take a week to process one tree.

Two early Japanese pioneers to Bellevue were Mr. Jusaburo Fujii and Mr. Kiichi Setsuda who arrived in 1898. The latter worked as a houseboy at Mr. Hunt’s place on Hunt’s Point where he grew potatoes. The former worked at local sawmills and as a cook for Mr. Dagwood who owned an Alaskan cannery. When not working at the cannery, Mr. Fujii worked as the ‘field boss’ for the gardens where Mr. Dagwood grew strawberries. As ‘field boss’ Mr. Fujii hired Japanese workers. Thus began the colorful story of the strawberry. The success of this plant as a highly desirable and productive crop in Bellevue was largely due to the hard work, experiments and skilled agricultural practices of Japanese farmers. At first they leased land for the required minimum of five years; the average life of a strawberry field. With this relatively stable commitment, they began to bring their wives and other family members to the area from Japan. Having made enough money, some were able to buy lands from the railroads.

J98.10.01.a-d - Strawberry pickers on the Takeshita farm in Bellevue, 1933

In 1904, the Wilburton trestle was built by the Northern Pacific Railroad bringing transportation and land opportunities to the Bellevue Midlakes area. Several Issei (Japanese-born) families bought land to farm. They set up successful farms growing pole beans, peas, tomatoes, strawberries, cabbages, cucumbers, celery and lettuce. In 1919, with the help of a Japanese-American attorney, the Takeshita family bought 13 acres just east of the railroad tracks and north of Lake Bellevue. Several other families bought adjacent property which they turned into productive agricultural lands located primarily in the Midlakes area. Wilburton and downtown Bellevue became Japanese farmlands as well. Between 1905 to 1938, there were 32 Issei who owned land: some of whom were Takeo (Tom) Matsuoka, Asaichi Tsushima, Itaro Ito and Takayushi Suguro.

Strawberry production was very successful and the fruit so popular that in 1925 a group, including Japanese farmers, got together to initiate the first Bellevue Strawberry Festival, complete with a Queen. The highlight of the festival was the scrumptious strawberry shortcakes with sun-ripened red strawberries topped with thick cream from local dairies. The majority of the strawberries were grown and provided by Bellevue Japanese farmers. The annual festival continued until 1942.

1994BHS.024.001 - 1939 view of Japanese farms near Midlakes

Despite the enactment of the Washington State Alien Land Law (March 2, 1921) that denied Japanese the right to purchase land, Issei (born in Japan) who had already purchased land could retain it and Nissei (Japanese citizens born in the United States) could purchase land. Thus the Japanese community and farmers continued to grow and prosper. With the leadership of members of the Bellevue Japanese Community Association, The community Clubhouse (Kokaido) was built in 1930 at 101st Avenue NE and NE 11th Street. It provided a space for language classes, social gatherings, services and active Japanese sports.

By 1931, Japanese-American farmers on the Eastside were shipping produce throughout the northwest via the Northern Pacific Railroad. Peas sold for approximately one cent per pound and strawberries for about one dollar a crate. As produce continued to flow in and out of Bellevue, the Bellevue Growers Association (organized in 1930) recognized the need for a central distribution site. In 1933 they helped build a shipping/packing shed in Midlakes alongside the railroad tracks at 117th NE & NE 10th. Three full-time, year-round employees were hired: a business manager, bookkeeper and floor manager assisted by 20 seasonal workers. Tom Matsuoka, who was very active in the Bellevue Growers Association, became the business manager. His marriage to Kazue Tatsunosuke was the first Bellevue marriage of a Nisei; Kazue being born in the United States.

Prior to World War II, there were about 300 Japanese Americans living in Bellevue comprising 15% of the general population and 90% of the agricultural workforce. It was around this time (December 7, 1941) that Tom Matsuoka remembers the sunny afternoon when he was preparing plants for the winter. Suddenly his daughter, Rae and friends, came running saying, “ There’s a war started. ---- The Japanese planes have bombed Pearl Harbor!” Tom was thoughtfully silent. Then he went back to tending his plants. Shortly thereafter several prominent Japanese community leaders, including Tom, were taken away to incarceration camps; Tom to Montana. Later he joined his family at Tule Lake, California.

J 89.02.02 - Tom Matsuoka and his sons, Ty and Tats, outside of the Bellevue Vegetable Growers Association shed. 1933

On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 ordering all people of Japanese decent to incarceration camps. In May 1942, all Japanese people (Issei and Nisei) in Bellevue were taken from their homes and sent to the Pinedale Assembly site near Fresno, California. The fields with strawberries ready to be harvested were empty of Japanese pickers and the Strawberry Festival was cancelled.

Sumie Akizuki, Nisei daughter of Issei Bellevue residents Takayoshi and Michi Suguro, remembers those tough times as she writes:

“We took the train at a station in Kirkland, and what an irony it was that we would go right pass our farm which was located right next to the railroad tracks. We could see the neat rows of the strawberry fields and our house in the distance. As the train went by, my parents saw their farm for the last time, focusing their eyes on the farm until it disappeared into the horizon. I’m sure it was heartbreaking to lose all they had worked so hard for. Going to camp was the first time I had been on a train. When I was growing up, I wished that someday, I could ride a train on the Wilburton Railroad Trestle. I would look up in awe at the trestle, which impressed me so much during my childhood. ——-. It is an irony that my dream came true when I rode on the trestle, on a coal driven locomotive, that took me to the Pinedale, California assembly center. What seemed like an adventure was not at all like I thought it would be, since it was a time of sadness and uncertainly.”

— Sumie Akizuki

Fifty years later, she rode the dinner train across the trestle with family and friends.

In 1993 four Japanese cherry trees were planted in the Bellevue Downtown park to honor the Japanese immigrants and their contributions to the growth of Bellevue. A plaque reads: “To honor the Bellevue citizens of Japanese ancestry who had so enriched our community”.

Sources:

Eastside Heritage Center archives

Sumie Akizuki letter

Journal American newspaper article, “The Clearing of Bellevue”, May 10, 1992.

Asaichi Tsushima, document “Pre-WWII History of Japanese Pioneers in the Clearing and Development of Land in Bellevue, 1952,

Rose Yabuki Matshushita, 1997 - Excerpt from presentation on Executive Order 9066 at Marymoor Museum

North American Post, article “ part 3 of an 8-part series: Bellevue’s Nikkei Roots”. 12/12/1997.

Publication of the Seattle Times: A Hidden Past. c. 2000

photo: 1936 showing 7 Japanese farms along 117th NE & NE 11th, photo courtesy of Mitsuko (Takeshita) Hashiguchi

Book: Bellevue Timeline by Alan J. Stein & The HistoryLink Staff, c.2004

The Japanese Farms of Early Bellevue

By EHC Youth Volunteer, Grant

Japanese farmers in King County, especially Bellevue, were essential to providing produce to the nearby populations. Most vegetables in the region were grown by Japanese farmers, and certain crops such as strawberries were a specialty of the farmers. However, their farmlands would later be taken from them and become the foundation of modern Bellevue.

Early Japanese immigrants first arrived in Bellevue in 1898, finding work on railroads, sawmills, and canneries, barely making a living while enduring discrimination in immigration, employment, and housing. Many turned to farming, converting land covered with marshes and tree stumps into productive cropland.

Japanese farmers on the Numato Farm in Yarrow Point, Bellevue. 1925

From the Eastside Heritage Center

Through hardships they raised families, ran their own businesses, and developed a lively community life. Japanese Americans worked hard and became a vital part of the local economy, supplying 75% of Bellevue and King County’s vegetables and half the milk supply. The Japanese cleared and settled hundreds of acres of land near the center of what is now downtown Bellevue. Where shopping malls and office buildings stand today, immigrants grew strawberries and vegetables and worked at a local sawmill. Japanese Americans even had a community center located just north of present-day Bellevue Square.

By the 1920s, Bellevue had become famous for its delicious strawberries, a chief crop of many Japanese families. This led to the first annual Bellevue Strawberry Festival being held behind the Main Street school in mid-June 1925. The festival attracted 3,000 visitors, an impressive number for the small community of Bellevue. In 1935, more than 15,000 people attended the festival -- nearly five times the number of people that lived in the small town.

Truck decorated for the 1930 Strawberry Festival in Bellevue.

From Eastside Heritage Center

Most of Bellevue's strawberries at that time were grown by Japanese farmers, who together managed 472 acres of land. The three-day event continued to be held annually until 1942, the year that 60 local Japanese families were forced to go to incarceration camps.

In December of 1941, Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, generating a fear of national security across the United States. As a response to these fears, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which led to mass incarceration of all people of Japanese ancestry on the West Coast.

Japanese families, knowing that they would lose their homes and belongings, rushed to sell their businesses, properties, and vehicles for next to nothing. On May 20, 1942, Bellevue’s 60 Japanese families, 300 people, were forced to board a train in Kirkland, where they would end up in an incarceration camp located at Tule Lake in Northern California. This camp was the largest of 10 inland incarceration camps.

Japanese farmers occupied many of the 515 vendor stalls at Pike Place Market in 1939. However, during the spring of 1942, crops left by Japanese farmers in Bellevue and elsewhere in the region were not harvested, and white farmers could not fill the gap. The number of stalls at Pike Place Market fell to 196. The Strawberry Festival, which made Bellevue a tourist destination, did not take place that year.

Over in Bellevue, Eastside businessmen, including Miller Freeman, started suburban and urban development, which would transform the city into what we know today. The cleared farmland left by the Japanese farmers became prime real estate for upscale shopping centers and residential areas, that could be made accessible with new highways, including the I-90 bridge which was completed in 1940.

Later, when 11 of the 60 Japanese American farmer families returned to Bellevue in 1945, nothing was the same. Their properties were damaged, they lost their stored possessions, and they experienced financial struggles. This caused many Japanese families to have to move on to other professions as they couldn’t start farming again.

Sources:

https://seattleglobalist.com/2017/02/19/anti-japanese-movement-led-development-bellevue/62732

https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/books/strawberry-days-uprooting-more-than-lives/

https://www.historylink.org/file/4144

https://www.historylink.org/file/298

https://www.historylink.org/File/231