Asaichi Tsushima's Book

At the McDowell House, we keep an ever-growing collection of reference books for use by our volunteers, staff, and outside researchers. In the midst of these tomes, you may come across an unassuming paperback book; a pale gray cover with bold black text that reads:

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

Inside is a treasure trove of knowledge gathered from the Japanese community prior to WWII. Mr. Asaichi Tsushima worked to preserve the memories of Bellevue’s earliest Japanese pioneers for the future. He dedicated the book to the Nisei of Bellevue and sought to show them an honest glimpse into the joys and heartaches of their parents’ generation.

“The Japanese immigrants, your parents, courageously and tenaciously struggled and persevered against horrendous odds, clearing the acres and acres of virgin forest land for agricultural and residential use, and I believe the Isseis made significant contributions to the community’s rapid growth. ”

— Asaichi Tsushima

There are hand-drawn maps of the farms worked by the Japanese community, photos of the Clubhouse dedication, and chapters covering things like the Life of the Farmers and Education and Religion. Perhaps most importantly, Mr. Tsushima lists, by name and home prefecture, all the early Japanese pioneers. He includes as much biographical information he had for each one up to WWII and after incarceration. This has been a tremendous resource for EHC and other local community organizations researching the families and community that built Bellevue.

The book was translated in 1991 by Harriet (Yamagishi) Mihara, Alan Hideo and Chiye (Ito) Yabuki, and Rose (Yabuki) Matsushita. EHC is lucky to have multiple copies of this little book in our collection and we keep one available for research purposes.

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Asaichi Tsushima arrived in Bellevue in 1908 at the age of twenty from Okayama-ken, Japan. He worked on a farm as a laborer in the strawberry fields until the manager, Mr. Hirayama moved to Seattle in 1910. From there, he worked in an apple orchard and as a gardener for white neighbors while living in a tent on Clyde Hill.

Through an arranged marriage, his wife Nami Tsushima came from Japan to join him in 1912. Nami worked as a domestic worker for some of the wealthy families on Hunts Point.

Asaichi leased a small tract on Hunts Point in 1917. The family grew vegetables and sold them to other families nearby. Around the same time, the Tsushimas farmed property at Fairweather Bay with the Mizokawa and Muromoto families.

The Japanese community was growing rapidly at that time and so was the need for education for their children, the Nisei. A language school was established in 1921, but was forced to close. Anti-Japanese propaganda made claims that these Nisei children were being forced to swear loyalty to Japan and it’s emperor. Those suspicions have since proved to be false, but they were effective in stoking racist fears in Bellevue.

A second language school opened in 1925 and held classes in a Downey Hill Issei home until the community organized for a school building in Medina in 1929. Mr. Tsushima was the first teacher. In 1930, the Japanese Community Clubhouse was built and the two schools consolidated there. Language lessons were initially only offered on Saturdays, but later they would be offered every day for an hour after school.

In the early morning hours of December 8, 1941, three Bellevue Japanese community leaders were taken from their homes by the FBI. Asaichi Tsushima was one of them. Due to his popularity as a public speaker and his close ties to the language school, Mr. Tsushima was considered a security threat following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He would spend the majority of the war years at a prison camp in New Mexico.

In 1942, Nami Tsushima and their daughter Michi were evacuated to Pinedale and Tule Lake, then to Minidoka. The Tsushima family returned to Bellevue in 1946. Mr. Tsushima worked on his book by taking down the remembrances of the Issei generation. He finished the book in 1952 and there was a limited publishing. He made special note to request the book never be sold.

Asaichi Tsushima returned to his birthplace in Japan and lived there until his death in 1969.

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Resources

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

Neiwert, David A. Strawberry Days: How Internment Destroyed a Japanese American Community. Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

Dirigo Compass

2006.27.02a Dirigo Compass, Trademark Dirigo/E. M. Sherman Seattle, Wash.

Maritime recreation and industry have shaped the communities on the Eastern shores of Lake Washington. One example of Bellevue’s maritime history is the Dirigo Compass Factory.

In the collection, EHC hosts a Dirigo Compass. This is an example of a mariner's compass. It consists of a pivoting needle on a pin inside a mahogany box. A “wind rose” is attached to the needle, which indicates the direction of the wind.

Dirigo, the state motto of Maine, translates to “I Direct” from Latin.

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In 1911, Eugene and Alice Sherman moved to Bellevue from New England. At the time, Bellevue’s business district consisted of a grocery store, a post office, and a blacksmith shop. The Shermans soon added a fourth business, the Dirigo Compass Factory, on the corner of 100th Ave and NE 1st. The factory had 2 stories and machinery took up the lower floor.

1994.02BHS.03 Eugene Sherman

1994.02BHS.01 Alice Sherman

Eugene was also a boatbuilder. In 1923, his launch pulled three vessels at the Bellevue dock away from danger when the ship next to them caught fire.

Alice was responsible for Bellevue’s music scene. A skilled violinist, she taught, performed, and organized musical events throughout the greater Bellevue area. Eugene shared his wife’s love of music. After he retired from the compass factory in 1944, he devoted his time to making violins.

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Resources:

Eastside Heritage Center Archives

Housing Discrimination

EHC is home to nearly 600 cubic feet of archival materials. Our archive hosts things like photographs, books, newspapers, and letters. One such letter showcases a painful chapter in one family’s journey to the Eastside. Far from exceptional, the Martin’s story is one of many who have faced housing discrimination both on the Eastside and in the United States.

Home Owners' Loan Corporation Security Map and Area Descriptions, January 10, 1936.

From Notes:

“D-4 Area: This is the Negro area of Seattle.”

“D-5 Area: This district is composed of various mixed nationalities. Homes are occupied by tenants in a vast majority. Homes generally old and obsolete in need of extensive repairs.”

(Mapping Inequality Project, University of Richmond)

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2008.051.001 Letter by Georgia Martin

Tim and Georgia Martin were looking to buy a home. In 1958 they were living in a two-bedroom house in the Central District in Seattle, with three children sharing one room. They needed more space and wanted to leave the Central District to pursue more opportunities for their family. There was just one problem - Tim Martin was Black.

During their house-hunting in Seattle, they were routinely met with discriminatory practices. Real Estate Agents refused to show them homes, banks declined to approve them for loans, and whole neighborhoods were off limits to them. A letter penned by Georgia in 1962 outlines the challenges they faced during this time.

“The person who answered the phone at Wallace Realty asked if we were Negro, Japanese or Caucasian. He said it made a difference and that he would not show the house to Negroes. He had nothing which he would show us.”

— Georgia Martin, 1962

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2008.023.003 Seattle Magazine, First Issue 1964

The first issue of Seattle Magazine, also in our collection, features an article written about Tim Martin and the challenges his family faced. This article elaborates on their eventual home-buying experience.

Tim and Georgia turned their sights east, to Bellevue. Tim had gone through the effort to become a licensed real estate agent, so he could draw up contracts and negotiate deals on his own behalf. When he saw an ad for a home in Lake Hills he was prepared to make a deal. The owner, while surprised by Martin’s race, was willing to sell to him and they quickly came to terms. After nearly two years of searching, they had a home.

Living in Bellevue was not easy for the Martins. Neighbors were distant and classmates shouted racial epithets at their children. After several months, they were gradually accepted into the community. Better schools and job opportunities for the Martin’s made the move worthwhile, but Tim had no illusions about their standing on the Eastside.

“Some people who have finally accepted me think that proves they are real, 14-carat liberals. It makes them feel oh so very proud. But if and when more Negroes move in, they’ll get the same treatment I did - and the white residents will use their acceptance of me as living proof that they aren’t bigots.”

— Tim Martin, Seattle Magazine 1964

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Tim and Georgia Martin were members of the Seattle Chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).

Georgia’s letter was written August 18, 1962 and presented as testimony to Seattle’s Mayor, Gordon Clinton, and the Mayor’s Advisory Committee on Open Housing.

To learn more about this history, check out this article from the Civil Rights and Labor History Consortium, University of Washington. The 1964 Open Housing Election.

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Resources:

2008.051.001 - Letter from Georgia Martin, 1962.

2008.023.003 - Seattle Magazine, April 1964. “A Pioneer’s Lonely Path”.

Jan, Tracy. “Analysis | Redlining Was Banned 50 Years Ago. It's Still Hurting Minorities Today.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 27 Apr. 2019, www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/03/28/redlining-was-banned-50-years-ago-its-still-hurting-minorities-today/.

Gross, Terry. “A 'Forgotten History' Of How The U.S. Government Segregated America.” NPR, NPR, 3 May 2017, www.npr.org/2017/05/03/526655831/a-forgotten-history-of-how-the-u-s-government-segregated-america.

Robert K. Nelson, LaDale Winling, Richard Marciano, Nathan Connolly, et al., “Mapping Inequality,” American Panorama, ed. Robert K. Nelson and Edward L. Ayers, accessed December 1, 2020, https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/.

“Home Owners' Loan Corporation Security Map and Area Descriptions, January 10, 1936.” The Seattle Public Library, cdm16118.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p16118coll2/id/379.

Eastside Stories: The Bellevue Fire Department

Eastside Stories is our way of sharing Eastside history through the many events, people places and interesting bits of information that we collect at the Eastside Heritage Center. We hope you enjoy these stories and share them with friends and family.

Article by Barb Williams

From small beginnings, the Bellevue Fire Department has grown over time to become  internationally recognized for its innovation and quality of service. Before Bellevue became an incorporated City (1953), it was part of unincorporated King County. Area residents were on their own to put out fires. However, as more people moved to the Eastside, there was a greater need for better fire protection. A group of volunteers provided an informal fire department that began in the 1920s. In 1941 a group of businessmen borrowed a fire truck from the county and parked it in the backyard of one of the volunteers. Calls for help came into the Medina switchboard operators, who relayed calls to the volunteers. “The first man at the truck rang the old school bell and wrote the address on the bulletin board. Men clambered on the truck. The fourth man operated the gauges and water pressure. They were off. More men raced after the truck in their cars and helped put out the fire.” (1) From this volunteer force, King County Fire District No.14 (KCFD 14) was created in Bellevue on July 27,1942 with the approval of Bellevue, Medina, Enatai and Wilburton residents.  A meeting was held at Henry Schierman’s Barber Shop on August 25,1942. Ten charter firefighter members attended. They elected George W. Sheets, a dry cleaner owner, as Fire Chief. The calls came into his service, he sounded the alarm, gathered the firefighters and off they went. In 1946, the alarm was moved to Bill Crooker’s grocery store. The group rented a building for a fire station in Old Bellevue behind Eastside Glass and Paint Company. They installed an air raid siren purchased from the Lake Washington Shipyard and bought a 1935 fire truck with pump from the U.S. Forest Service. Their primary function was to put out fires such as the outside wall fire at the Minish residence caused by an overheated stove. Or Ruth M. Bancroft’s fire in 1947 that started at Killarney Circle when she was clearing and burning Scotch-Broom on her lot.  “Never before or since have I been so glad to see men, Men, MEN!” She was speaking of the volunteer firefighters of the KCFD 14. 

Photo (above): Bellevue Fire Department photo of (Left to Right) Bill Crooker, ?, Len Schaal, Frank Gass (Fire Chief)

Over the years, the volunteers were integrated with paid staff. In 1947, Frank Gass was elected to be the new Volunteer Fire Chief and later became the first paid member of the KCFD 14. By 1964 there were 14 full-time paid firefighters who worked Monday-Friday (8am-4pm) and 83 volunteer firefighters. (Volunteers were phased out in 1980.)

The KCFD 14 was growing and evolved into its own city unit when the Bellevue Fire Department (BFD) was formed at midnight on January 1, 1965. Captain Leo Wenner managed 14 firefighters. Jeanette Woldseth Washington State’s first career female firefighter in 1977 later became BFD’s first female fire captain. The department became known for its creativity; it developed innovative programs such as fire prevention, training, and the establishment of Medic 1(1972), Eastside Hazardous Materials Consortium (1984) and the “Light Force Company”(1994) in which an engine and a ladder truck work in tandem.  In 1998 BFD received Accredited Agency status from the Commission on Fire Accreditation International becoming the eighth fire department in the world to receive this status. The increase in high-rise buildings required appropriate training and equipment. Medical emergencies out-numbered all others which prompted the department to have trained medics and equipment on many trucks. A City of Bellevue 2018 website report shows 78% of 20,000+ incidents were medical in nature. By 2019, the Bellevue Fire Department consisted of: 253 employees, including 9 chief officers, 167 firefighters - EMT, 37 firefighters - paramedics, 40 civilian employees, 9 fire stations and multiple vehicles. At this time the Bellevue Fire Department served the following communities; Bellevue, Medina, Clyde Hill, Beaux Arts, The Three Points communities, Newcastle, support to Mercer Island and medical units to Issaquah and North Bend.

Skillfully, members of the Bellevue Fire Department saved our home from burning in 1984. The Department deserves our respect, praise and thanks for their service to our Eastside communities over time. 

Photo (above): This photo shows a crowd or citizens with fire fighters and fire truck. Taken May 1965 during and Open House celebrating the first Bellevue City Fire Department this was snapped on Main Street and shows Leo Wenner (Bellevue’s first Fire Chief in white hat) riding on the fire truck Segraves purchased in 1961.

Sources:

1)   City of Bellevue website:  Bellevue Fire Department 2019 Annual Report

2)   Book: Bellevue Fire Department, 50th Anniversary   1965 - 2015

3)   Pamphlet:  50 Years  Bellevue Fire   1965 - 2015: A Guide to Our History  1942-2015

4)   Article by Ruth M. Bancroft “Lack of fire protection ignites volunteer spirit”, Bellevue  American, Thursday, March 11, 1976  page D2, footnote (1)

5)   Article  Eastside Heritage Corner, “The formative years of the Bellevue Fire Department”,  Bellevue Reporter,  April 8, 2016

6)  Article by Allison Deangelis “Laurie Lamp becomes Bellevue Fire’s third female captain”,  Bellevue Reporter,  May 13, 2016

7)  Article by David Wilma “Bellevue Emergency and Police Services” 

8)  Fire Report:  Bellevue Volunteer Fire Department  12-3-50

9)  Meeting Report:  Charter Members of Bellevue Volunteer Fire Department  August 25, 1942

Eastside Stories: Twin Valley Dairy

Article by Carla Trsek

Eastside Stories is our way of sharing Eastside history through the many events, people places and interesting bits of information that we collect at the Eastside Heritage Center. We hope you enjoy these stories and share them with friends and family.

Kelsey Creek Farm is a very popular city park in Bellevue, but its agricultural story goes back several decades before Bellevue incorporated. The land was first farmed by the Duey family in the 1920s and 1930s. William Duey worked on a farm in Skagit Valley, but when he heard about land available for rent in what is now Bellevue, he moved with his wife and three children in 1921 to start their own dairy.

The land belonged to the Haller family, a Seattle family with extensive Eastside land holdings. In addition to the land that became Kelsey Creek Farm, the wealthy family also owned the land that became the Glendale Golf Course along the park’s northern border.

The Duey’s first barn before the 1933 fire. Note the angled roofs. Photo courtesy City of Bellevue.

It was far from ideal farmland. Most of the property was either covered with stumps or soaked in wetlands. The stumps came from the Hewitt-Lea Lumber Company, which had logged the site around the turn of the century. Additionally, no roads connected the farm to the small town of Bellevue. The only access to the property was a railroad bed with the ties still in place. It had only gone out of service two years before the Duey family moved in.

William and Pearl Duey and their three children, Fernley, Alta, and William Jr., quickly got to work pulling out stumps, building a house, building a barn and establishing a herd of dairy cows. They milked the cows twice a day and delivered milk, cream, and butter to customers once a day. They named their farm Twin Valley Dairy in honor of the two valleys that parallel either side of the barns.

The Duey’s second barn after the 1933 fire. Note the rounded roof. This barn still stands at Kelsey Creek Farm and houses the park’s resident animals. Photo courtesy City of Bellevue.

The Twin Valley Dairy provided a good life for their family but they were not always financially secure. Especially during the 1930s when people who couldn’t pay for their milk in cash, they would offer services or products from their own farms in return. Additionally, the logging operation that preceded the farm and bedeviled the Dueys as they pulled out stump after stump at least provided the family with a second source of income. There was so much downed cedar on the property left over from the logging operation that Mr. Duey cut and sold cedar fence posts.

The heart of the dairy were the cows. The herd was made of a mix of dairy breeds common during the period, including Brown Swiss, Guernsey, and Jersey. They kept about thirty milking cows, but the total bovine population rose and fell with the births and sales of calves. The cows lived year-round in the pastures, although they probably were taken into the barn for milking and possibly for calving. In a small barn just south of the main barn, milk was bottled and cream and butter were made.

In 1933, the barn and 90 tons of hay stored in its hay loft burned to the ground. The Duey’s youngest son Fernley remembered that “the whole hillside was afire. It was a mess. We had to milk the cows and tie them to a fence for several days until another barn could be built.” That new barn was built amazingly quickly. Neighbors and hired hands put up the structure in just a few weeks. The Duey’s continued to provide milk, cream, and butter to Eastside customers through the end of the decade.

William and Pearl Duey in front of their milk truck, c. 1930s. Photo courtesy City of Bellevue.

At the beginning of World War II, the Duey family moved off the property and the Haller family sold it to a man named John Michael. The Duey family sold him their business, including their cows. Michael expanded the dairy herd and built a larger barn to the north of the Duey’s barn with material purchased from Dunn Lumber in Seattle.

All three barns are protected as part of the city’s park. The small milk barn is now painted red and serves as offices for the site’s staff. The Duey’s big barn is now painted white and houses the park’s resident farm animals and Michael’s larger white barn serves as classrooms and offices. In a city now dominated by growing business interests, Kelsey Creek Farm provides a tangible connection to Bellevue’s agricultural history.

References:

Harvey, David W. “Historical Analysis of Kelsey Creek Community Park Barns Bellevue, Washington.” For Kovalenko Architects and City of Bellevue Parks and Recreation Department. October 1991.

Jones and Jones. “Kelsey Creek Community Park Renovation Plan.” City of Bellevue Department of Parks and Recreation. June 1993.

McDonald, Lucile. “Kelsey Creek Park land still being farmed.” Journal American. April 23, 1979.

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Our Mission To steward Eastside history by actively collecting, preserving, and interpreting documents and artifacts, and by promoting public involvement in and appreciation of this heritage through educational programming and community outreach.

Our Vision To be the leading organization that enhances community identity through the preservation and stewardship of the Eastside’s history.

Eastside Stories: Postal Women of the Eastside

Eastside Stories is our way of sharing Eastside history through the many events, people places and interesting bits of information that we collect at the Eastside Heritage Center. We hope you enjoy these stories and share them with friends and family.

Article from the Eastside Heritage Center

The month of March is Women’s History Month starting in 1986 when Congress adopted the holiday from several states who were already celebrating it. 1987 marked the first year with an official, nationally recognized month honoring women. Here on the Eastside of King County we have a history of remarkable women who rose to the occasion when their family and community needed them. One of the ways was ensuring that packages and correspondence made it to residents who were often far from friends and families as they started a new life. Without email or social media, letters were the only way to get news of the loved ones and keep up with business in other regions. This article discusses some of the women who helped keep the post going since the 1880s.

Isabella Bechtel was the widow of Isaac Bechtel who moved his family from Ontario, Canada after purchasing land in Bellevue. Isabella and her six children arrived in 1885. In 1886 Isaac became the postmaster for the growing town soon to be known as Bellevue, so that correspondence could reach the residents, and importantly, the school. At the time the post office did about $100.00 in business a year.

 On November 14, 1890 Isaac was caught in a logjam near Wildwood Park and killed. The next day Isabella declared that she would take over his duties as postmaster for the region. Isabella retired as postmaster only on a disputed date sometimes between 1891-1895 probably due to the financial hardship she faced after her husband’s death. In spite of having to leave the cabin where the Bechtel home and the first post office was located, Isabella landed on her feet, moving her family to a 40 acre tract of land she bought outright. Isabella Bechtel also is sometimes credited with naming Bellevue although the origins of the name is disputed. Because her post office needed an official designation when two postal inspectors visited, they titled the location based on the beautiful view from her house.  

After Isabella Bechtel stepped down as postmaster a man named William Ivey took over. Although he held the position for 23 years, under his guidance women were still a part of delivering the post. May Johnson, a Prussian immigrant carried mail from Houghton to Bellevue twice a week. Starting at the age of 41 she carried the mail for $50 a year. May traveled the almost 4 miles armed with a can of pepper to ward off animals.

Likewise, it is said that a woman ran the first post office in Northrup.  Ann Dunn named the location herself after a pioneering family and ran the post office out of her home. In addition to her post office Northup had a school, small store, and a railway stop.

 After these first post offices and basic routes on horseback women continued to make correspondence possible on the Eastside. In 1920 Regina Blackwood became the second woman to run the Bellevue Post office.  During World War One, Donald A. Wilson recalled having to moonlight at other jobs and being assisted by Mrs. Le Huquet for 6 weeks on his route from Newport Shores to Phantom lake and then Lake Sammamish.

Adelaide Belote also assisted him in the early years of the 1900s as he made the move from Seattle to the Eastside. She became in some ways locally famous for her long stint working in the post office all the way into the 40s and 50s. Adelaide Belote served as assistant postmaster for several generations continuing the long history of women in the postal service on King County’s Eastside.

Isabella Bechtel and her two daughters , Maude to her left and Jesse to her right, stand outside of the family home and the first post office in Bellevue.

May Johnson on her horse. The photo was taken near what is now the intersection of NE 8th and 100th NE.

United States Post Office employees on Nov. 9, 1956. Adelaide Belote sits in the front row four from the right in a collared dress.

Eastside Stories: Factoria School

Eastside Stories is our way of sharing Eastside history through the many events, people places and interesting bits of information that we collect at the Eastside Heritage Center. We hope you enjoy these stories and share them with friends and family.

Anyone driving around the Bellevue area these days is familiar with the sight of new school buildings rising to completely replace those built not so very long ago, in the 1950’s and 60’s when the Eastside’s population was soaring. So it’s something of a surprise to discover that here and there remnants of the truly early school buildings live on, hidden in unexpected places. 

One of those early buildings is the Factoria School, built in 1929 on the side of the hillside overlooking what is now the I-90/ I-405 interchange.  An even earlier schoolhouse, a good-sized frame building, had been built in 1901, creating tiny Factoria School District #134, which never comprised more than one school.  At that time, the east-west route where I-90 now lies was a trail connecting Mercer Landing at Enatai to Robinson Landing on Lake Sammamish People moving north and south went most easily by boat on Lake Washington.  So it is perhaps not surprising that the schools that existed in those days served just their very immediate communities of farmers, loggers, and coal miners.  In 1901 the closest school houses to Factoria were at Wilburton, Newcastle, and near Phantom Lake.

1989.05.04, photo of schoolchildren on steps of school, 1924

In 1929 the original school house burned down and was replaced by a brick structure containing four classrooms.  A cement lintel over the front door was incised with the school’s name.  In 1942 District #134, along with five other local districts plus Union S High School, consolidated to become Overlake School District. Wartime brought other changes as well.  Factoria School was closed and turned over to the Army for use as a barracks. It was also one of several  locations on the Eastside that received loads of sand that residents were directed to pick up and keep on hand in case anticipated  bombings caused fires.  The building was returned to the school district after the war and reopened in 1950 as part of newly created Bellevue School District #405.

2005.0280.158, building after sale in 1961

In the early 1950’s settlement was still sparse east of what is now I-405:  Somerset, Eastgate and Lake Hills lay in the future.  Factoria’s students, first through fourth graders in four classrooms, came largely from the communities of Norwood Village, Horizon View and Hilltop plus families along Newport Wa, Richards Road, and the lake shore south to Hazelwood. They moved to Enatai School after fourth grade.  One resident who attended the school at that time recalled the year that the entire school went all in for the March of Dimes.  Kids brought in dimes that were stuck onto a long roll of adhesive tape, marked on the back with a different color for each grade. They raised $65.10 and also wrote letters to children at Children’s Orthopedic Hospital in  Seattle who were polio patients. (In those years the fear of contracting polio was very much on children’s minds.)

2013.046.086, Factoria School fire, 1960

In 1957 a larger school, Woodridge Elementary, opened, and little Factoria School was dedicated to special services personnel but still served as a polling place for two precincts.   In 1960 it burned but wasn’t destroyed.  In 1961 the school district sold the building to Farwest Electronics.  The lintel inscribed “Factoria” was cut away and eventually donated to the Bellevue Historical Society.  For several years it rested beneath trees at Woodridge Elementary.  When that school was torn down and replaced with a new structure in 2008, the lintel was returned to the Eastside Heritage Center, where it now resides, safe and dry but quite unobserved, in the basement of McDowell House.

And what of the old school building?  Against all odds, it would seem, it still lives on.  S.E. 32nd St. dead ends beyond East Shore Unitarian Church in front of a contemporary looking building housing Seattle King County Realtors Association and other offices. Hidden beneath the new façade, the old brick building, now 90 years old, continues to serve a useful purpose to yet another resident on Woodridge Hill.

 By: Margaret - EHC Volunteer

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Special thanks to Mary Ellen Piro for previous research into this topic. She left her notes and findings to EHC.

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Our Mission To steward Eastside history by actively collecting, preserving, and interpreting documents and artifacts, and by promoting public involvement in and appreciation of this heritage through educational programming and community outreach.

Our Vision To be the leading organization that enhances community identity through the preservation and stewardship of the Eastside’s history.

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Origins of Places’ Names in Bellevue and Its Surroundings

OR/L 79.79.244

When people choose a new city to live, they usually don’t care about the name of their new city. What matters are, for example, location, transportation, or the cost of living in that city, but normally how the name of city sounds doesn’t matter.

                I am one of the unusual persons who decided to move to Bellevue partly because of its name – I felt the tone of its name “Bellevue” comfortable and beautiful. Though I confess that it wasn’t the main reason that I chose Bellevue as my first city in the United States (yes, there were lots of other reasons – of course more practical ones), the name of Bellevue was definitely a part of reasons for me.

                But why is Bellevue called Bellevue? It’s a bit strange to give such a French-influenced name only to Bellevue (as you may already know, Bellevue means “Beautiful view” in French), seeing that there seems to be no such influence on names of other places in Bellevue or surrounding areas.  This question leads me to refer to some origins of places’ names in Bellevue and surrounding areas in this article.

                In Bellevue and its environs, I think one of the most visible categories about places’ names are the ones named after persons’ names. For example, there are Larson Lake (named after Ove Peter Larson, coal miner, homesteaded in 1889), McCormick Park (named after Robert McCormick, who was active in many civic projects during the fifties and the sixties), Meydenbauer Bay (named after William Meydenbauer, one of the first pioneers in Bellevue in 1869) and Mercer Slough (named after Aaron Mercer, settled in August 1869) in Bellevue or near Bellevue. In those cases, the names were chosen either among the persons who engaged socially in the area (This is true of McCormick’s case), or among early pioneers coming to the area.

                There is a case in which a wish about future image of place can form its new name. Factoria, a business district in south Bellevue, was named in anticipation of its future industry. Fortunately, now Factoria is one of the liveliest commercial districts in the city, although it is not certain if this is thanks to its name.  

                Let’s get back to the name of Bellevue itself. I found two possible explanations why it was named Bellevue, and from both points of view, this name is something to do with the first post office in Bellevue, established in the 1880s. The first one tells that, during a conversation among postmen working there, one postman suggested to give to this area a name related to its good view, and in agreeing with him, another proposed to spell it in French way. According to this first explanation, this conversation is the origin of the name of Bellevue.  The second one tells that Lucien and Matt Sharpe, brothers who worked as first postmen in Bellevue, chose the name Bellevue for this area. Actually, their hometown was the city already named Bellevue in Indiana, and that is why they chose this name for their new place of residence. Apparently, we don’t know which one is true (or if there is another true story) because of lack of documentations, but here are two interesting explanations.

                We tend to take places’ names for granted and not rethink about their names, but exploring origins of their names is exploring their histories. If you have some time this summer, it would be interesting to take a glance at some anecdotes behind the name of the place where you live.

 By: Misako - EHC Volunteer

References:

-          Historic place names of Bellevue (Bellevue Historical society, in 1989, as a part of Centennial project)

-          “Have you ever wondered where our eastside names came from? Here’s some interesting trivia” Windermere Real Estate

-          Another version of how city came to be known by the name Bellevue, Lucile McDonald, 1980

-          City of Bellevue, About us, https://bellevuewa.gov/discover-bellevue/about-us, consulted on July 9th 2019

Eastside Stories: Eastside Cities

Eastside Stories is our way of sharing Eastside history through the many events, people places and interesting bits of information that we collect at the Eastside Heritage Center. We hope you enjoy these stories and share them with friends and family.

Cities. Almost all of us on the Eastside today live in one. We may take our cities for granted, but they have not always existed—people had to create them. States are the foundation of the country, and counties are necessary subdivisions of states. Cities are, well, kind of optional.

When Finn Hill joined Kirkland in 2011, one of the last large bits of urban unincorporated area on the Eastside came under the benevolent arm of city hall. Most Eastsiders now live in one of 14 cities in the urbanized areas and five in the rural areas. The boundaries of cities often seem to make little sense, and they sit on top of a patchwork of school and other special districts.

If we were designing a system of governance from scratch we certainly would not end up with anything like the current map of the Eastside. So, how did we end up with our current array of cities?

Cities are formed when a group of residents petition their county government. Once a boundary for a proposed city is agreed upon, residents within that boundary vote on incorporation. Residents can also vote to annex to an existing city, if that city is willing to absorb them.

In the early days of the Eastside, pioneers had few expectations for government services, so cities were slow to form. It can be perfectly fine to live in unincorporated areas without city government. County government provides basic services, and other services are provided by special utility and fire districts and private associations.

Scene on Front Street in Issaquah circa 1910

The first wave of incorporations happened in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Issaquah is the oldest city on the Eastside, dating back to 1892 (originally named Gilman). It was a coal mining town that made a successful transition to railroad work. Snoqualmie (1903), Bothell (1909) and North Bend (1909) all had their roots in the early railroad routes and as logging and agricultural commercial centers.

Kirkland, which incorporated in 1905, was slated to become the “Pittsburgh of the West.” By the time Peter Kirk’s big industrial plans fell through, Kirkland had become a good sized settlement, and it made sense to form a city. Redmond, had its roots as a timber and railroad center, and incorporated its growing downtown in 1912. The farming and railroad towns of Carnation and Duvall incorporated in 1912 and 1913, respectively.

In 1910, when the postcard was mailed, Redmond was big enough not only to have its own souvenir cards, but also a local post office to mail them from.

Then city formation on the Eastside ground to a halt for decades. Growth was slow, as mining and timber activity wound down and few new large industries moved to the still-remote area. Some larger settlements, like those around the mines of Newcastle, disbanded. Bellevue was still just a one-street village, and the vast commercial areas of Overlake were farms and forests. Not much need for new cities.

Then in the 1950s, the Eastside sprang to life.

The new bridge across Mercer Island opened the area to large scale homebuilding, and Bellevue began to resemble a real city. In 1953 Bellevue incorporated with just under 6,000 residents. Feeling Bellevue breathing down their necks, the Points Communities formed themselves into four separate cities: Clyde Hill (1953), Hunts Point (1955), Medina (1955), Yarrow Point (1959). And the tiny artists colony of Beaux Arts Village formed itself into a town in 1954.

Eugene Boyd and Phil Reilly celebrate the incorporation of Bellevue in 1953

Then another 35 years of quiet. Bellevue, Kirkland, Redmond, Issaquah and Bothell gradually annexed surrounding neighborhoods, but many pockets of residential area were perfectly happy with the benign neglect that county government offered.

But along came a less benign force: the Growth Management Act of 1989, which required extensive planning and encouraged higher density development. Nothing gets the attention of otherwise complacent citizens like the prospect of changes in land use, and within a few years, the Eastside had four more cities seeking to control their destiny: Woodinville (1993), Newcastle (1994), Kenmore (1998), Sammamish (1999).

In many respects, cities are the ultimate democratic institutions: groups of free citizens banding together to form a local government that will collect taxes from them and provide services they ask for. The chaotic looking map of the Eastside is the result of tens of thousands of individual decisions by Eastsiders about how they want to shape their neighborhoods. Individual cities take on the character of their residents over time and become unique places.

From chaos comes community.

All images from the collection of the Eastside Heritage Center. If you are interested in obtaining images from our collection, which has extensive holdings from Eastside cities, contact us at collections@eastsideheritagecenter.org

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Learn more about the Eastside. Books available from Eastside Heritage Center include:

Lake Washington: The Eastside

Bellevue: the Post World War II Years

Our Town, Redmond

Medina

Hunts Point

Bellevue: Its First 100 Years

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Our Mission To steward Eastside history by actively collecting, preserving, and interpreting documents and artifacts, and by promoting public involvement in and appreciation of this heritage through educational programming and community outreach.

Our Vision To be the leading organization that enhances community identity through the preservation and stewardship of the Eastside’s history.

Eastside Heritage Center is supported by 4 Culture

Eastside Stories: Ferry Landings of Lake Washington

No. 5 | April 3, 2019

Eastside Stories

Eastside Stories is our way of sharing Eastside history through the many events, people places and interesting bits of information that we collect at the Eastside Heritage Center. We hope you enjoy these stories and share them with friends and family.

Ferry Landings of Lake Washington, Part I

The first edition of Eastside Stories described the ferries that connected the Eastside to Seattle before the floating bridges. These vessels had to land somewhere, and we'll begin the story of the ferry landings on the east side of Lake Washington.

Captain Robert Matson, who began working on Lake Washington ferries as a boy, drew up a map that shows over 30 formal wharves from Juanita to Kennydale in service in 1909. Many other known docks are not shown on his map, so it would be safe to say that well over three dozen formal stops existed on the Eastside at one time or another. This large number of stops makes sense for a couple of reasons.

First, there were few roads around the Eastside at the time, so once off the ferry, it would be tough to travel far. Life around the lake was really oriented toward the water. Front doors were on the water side and in some areas property owners were required to grant easements on their shoreline so local residents could walk along the beach to the ferry.

Second, most of the ferry service was via passenger steamer, with vehicle service offered only to Kirkland, Medina and Bellevue. So ferries needed to drop their passengers off close to home.

Many of these landings exist only in distant memories or on sketches like Captain Matson’s. But others have remained in public ownership and are now enjoyed as parks and fishing piers, sometimes known mostly to the neighbors.

Following are five of the wharves on the north end of the lake. In future editions, we’ll look at wharves on the southern half of the lake as well as on Mercer Island and in Seattle.

Juanita Bay . Juanita, originally known as Hubbard, was settled in the 1870s as a farming and timber community. It later became a popular beach that attracted people from around the area. Juanita Bay itself is quite shallow, so the wharf had to be built some distance from the shore. A stack of cordwood to fuel the steamers is visible at the end of the pier.

Kirkland . As the major city of the Eastside, Kirkland was the first to get vehicle ferry service in 1905. (In that year, most of the vehicles would have been horse-drawn wagons). And Kirkland was the last Eastside community to enjoy car ferry service , which ended in 1950, ten years after the Mercer Island bridge had opened. The Kirkland ferry dock was located where the current public pier sits in downtown Kirkland.

Northup . This pier, among the earliest on the Eastside, was situated on the east side of Yarrow Bay in the community of Houghton. (Yarrow Point and Hunts Point are in the background.) The Northups and several other families settled the area in the 1870s. These children would have attended the Houghton School which was just to the north of the ferry landing or the Northup School further to the south.

Penrose Landing, Hunts Point . Hunts Point had more than its share of ferry landings because it had a relatively large number of daily commuters, at least in the summer months. This landing was on the east side of Hunts Point, in Cozy Cove. A passenger who missed the ferry here could run across the point to the Club House dock and likely make it there before the ferry rounded the point. (Photo courtesy of Washington State Archives)

Club House dock, Hunts Point . This image shows the Club House dock on Fairweather Bay, during an Independence Day celebration in 1915. (Photo courtesy of Town of Hunts Point)

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Learn more about the Eastside. Books available from Eastside Heritage Center include:

Lake Washington: The Eastside

Bellevue: the Post World War II Years

Our Town, Redmond

Medina

Hunts Point

Bellevue: Its First 100 Years

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Our Mission To steward Eastside history by actively collecting, preserving, and interpreting documents and artifacts, and by promoting public involvement in and appreciation of this heritage through educational programming and community outreach.

Our Vision To be the leading organization that enhances community identity through the preservation and stewardship of the Eastside’s history.

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Eastside Heritage Center is supported by 4 Culture