W.E. Le Huquet, Early Bellevue Booster

BY MARGARET LALIBERTE, EASTSIDE HERITAGE CENTER VOLUNTEER

William Eugene Le Huquet may be best known as the editor and publisher of The Reflector, the Bellevue area’s early newspaper published between 1918 and 1934.  But he was so much more than that as a tireless promoter of Bellevue, its merchants, schools, and community organizations.   The initial masthead of the Reflector provided a clue to his agenda: “Non-partisan, Non-sectarian, Neutral [he later added “Non-individualistic”] A Medium for the Exchange of Ideas relative to local improvement.”

W. E. Le Huquet in front of the family home at 9616 NE 5th St. (1998BHS.16.05)

Although Le Huquet’s overarching goal was to create a vibrant community --“The greatest need  of Reflector Territory is cooperation and you know it.”-- he could hardly be considered nondividualistic or neutral.  He was passionate, creative, ebullient—and, on occasion, plain cantankerous.  Editions of the Reflector illustrated all of those traits as he tirelessly exhorted readers to support local businesses,  join the myriad clubs and organizations that proliferated during the Twenties and Thirties, support such local issues as the public ferry system, fire protection, and local school district, and vote, vote, vote. “Individual patriotism to local endeavors should be our first consideration.”

From the outset, the Reflector was a family affair, and Le Huquet invited his readers to watch and participate.  January 1, 1919, his eldest child, Sylvia, made her appearance as a typesetter—at age six.  “She is learning to set type to help her daddy.  She set up the poem on the front page…Sylvia wishes to become an Editorette.” Over the years, as the eight remaining Le Huquet children were deemed old enough, they all joined the paper’s staff. When twins were born in December 1919, Le Huquet invited his readers to send in suggestions for the babies’ names.  But just a month later he had to announce that one twin, the boy, had not survived. “Our Little Editor was born December 17th 1919 and died January 17, 1920. “

Le Huquet concocted intriguing ways to boost newspaper subscriptions.  In 1920 he announced the Better Reflector Contest.  Subscribers were invited to mail in their criticisms and discovery of errors.  He awarded five points for misspellings; 10 for both unintentional grammar errors and “worthy suggestions.” One-half point was awarded for each cent of new advertising and 100 points for a new subscription.  The winner could choose one of two First Prizes: $25 in cash or a $40 first payment on a $350 lot in the new Lochleven subdivision on Meydenbauer Bay. (Mrs. H. Anderson won first prize and elected to take the payment on the lot.)  To promote both the paper and local clubs and organizations, he agreed to split the proceeds when subscriptions were submitted in a group from a club.

With nine children ultimately attending local schools, Le Huquet pushed for the development of the local school district. He had vigorously supported a school bond measure in 1920 and helped it pass with a 3.5-to-1 margin, after it had been defeated 2-to-1 in 1916.  He ran for the local school board twice, was elected once and then defeated in 1927. He firmly believed that a healthy, growing school system meant a growing business district as well.

Le Huquet served as the first Secretary of the Bellevue District Development Club when it was  founded in 1922. For years he screened movies for the community on Wednesday and Friday evenings at the Bellevue Clubhouse on today’s 100th Ave. N.E. (site of the Boys’ and Girls’ Club).  But it was not always smooth sailing.  In 1927 “Because the children attending the Bellevue Clubhouse movies do not appreciate the admission price of 10c by being quiet during the performance, the price has been raised to 15c on Wednesdays. For the present the price on Fridays will be 10c.  The next move will be to omit children’s prices altogether or admit only those accompanied by parents or guardians.” The unfortunate upshot of this kerfuffle was that the following month the Bellevue District Development Club decided to cancel its sponsorship of the moving pictures program.

Somehow Le Huquet found the time and energy to run a second local business: he produced a variety of flavoring extracts under the Le Huquet label.  They were sold in local groceries from Wilburton to Kirkland and in a few locations in Seattle.

Le Huquet Flavoring Extracts Advertisement, The Reflector, October 6, 1932

W.E. Le Huquet left Bellevue sometime after 1930 and moved to New Jersey, but his family remained and his wife Lilian continued to publish the Reflector. By 1933 Sylvia had become Assistant Manager, Gloria was Chief Compositor, and the rest of the clan were listed as Assistants. But in 1934 the newspaper ceased publication.  By then Bellevue had a second newspaper, the Bellevue American, and the Eastside Journal was published in Kirkland.  The Reflector, “circulating in The Heart of the Charmed Land” with a family of 2500 Readers in Seattle’s Superb Suburbs,” quietly passed from the scene.

Resources

EHC archived collection of Reflectors

Lucile McDonald, Bellevue: Its First 100 Years

Lucile McDonald, “Small Town Printer was Important figure,” Journal American, July 23, 1979

HistoryLink Essay 4146 by Alan J. Stein, 2003, updated 2011

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 Early Community at Northup

BY margaret Laliberte, EASTSIDE HERITAGE CENTER VOLUNTEER

Drivers negotiating the SR520/I-405 interchange can be forgiven for not realizing that they are passing right over the site of the little district of Northup, which developed in 1890s. Virtually all of it has been erased from today’s landscape.

In 1884 or ’85 James Northup recorded his land claim at the head of what is now called Yarrow Bay.  He and his wife Almira built a cabin on property.  They were joined by their son Benson, who in 1889 built a larger house very close to where today’s Burgermaster Drive-In restaurant stands. At some point the Northup Dairy and Cherry Farm existed on the property.

Florella and Benson Northup, 1912. (L85.2)

When the Northups arrived,  King County’s population was exploding: it grew from 6,910 in 1880 to 63,989 in 1890, an increase of 826%!. Just to the north, beginning in 1888, Peter Kirk and Leigh S.J. Hunt planned to industrialize the area with a huge iron and steel mill , a project that soon collapsed. But Northup’s neighborhood was still deep woods and scattered families.  There was never a town, really, more a collection of essential community services that sprang up over the early years. The dock on the bay became known as Northup Landing.   A Methodist Episcopal church was founded in 1888.  A post office opened in July 1892 and lasted until 1897. Local resident Mrs. Ann Dunn was postmaster.  Apparently at some point there was also a store.

Perhaps as early as 1879 a group of local settlers had filed a petition with the King County Commissioners of Washington Territory for a public road to run east and intersect with the only north-south road then existing that connected the area with the mines at Newcastle (now 140th Ave. N.E.).  At first the road apparently ran due east from the bay.  In 1886 its route was altered to run southeast so as to avoid the steep section over “Fagerburg Hill.” Originally called Road 85, it became known as Northup Way.

Northup got its school around 1890, located on what is today’s 116th Ave. N.E. north of Northup Way. In the 1960s an early resident, Hattie Goff Norman, recalled that “it was a very fine building with a belfry and large bell, cloak room, and ink wells in the desks.”  The first teacher, Margaret Yarno, commuted across the lake to Northup Landing from Seattle. In 1893 the school reportedly had 24 boys and 26 girls, although only about 16 children usually attended. In the early years teachers and their pupils put on evening programs—short plays, tableaux, recitations—for parents and the community.

Pupils of the Northup School with their teacher, Margaret Yarno, probably ca. 1893. (L82.050.025)

At one point the hills above Northup were being logged. A wooden chute, greased with axel grease, was built to shoot the logs downhill to the lake, and a gap was left at the point where the wagon road crossed it. A guard was stationed at the gap to insure that passersby wouldn’t be hit by a log hurtling down the chute, jumping the road, and diving into the water.

In 1905 the railroad finally came through Northup when the Northern Pacific finally completed its line between the Black River (southwest of Renton) and Woodinville.  One of two “stations” in the Bellevue area—the other was Wilburton—Northup had a depot in an old boxcar and a siding that could accommodate 50 railcars.  The line was primarily for freight and had originally been envisioned as a bypass around the congested railyards in Seattle. 

Perhaps the railroad’s printed schedule of September 1905 was partly responsible for the confusion that developed over the area’s name—was it Northrup or Northup? The schedule listed the station as Northrup.  In the 1930s road engineers furthered the error by installing road signs on “Northrup Road.”  Only in 1970 was the great-great-granddaughter of James Northup able to convince the Bellevue City Council of the correct family name, and the signs were finally rectified.

Heart of Northup in 1913, looking north up116th Avenue NE. Northup School with its belfry is visible on the upper right of the photo. Note the Northern Pacific’s boxcar “station” just beyond the railroad tracks. Courtesy Matt McCauley.

Today Northup is very much a lost landscape.  Benson Northup’s home still stood in 2007 when a cultural resources assessment was compiled in connection with the expansion of the South Kirkland Park & Ride. But today commercial and residential buildings occupy the site. Further to the east, the Northup School building became a private home in 1940, was  eventually purchased by The Little School, and was demolished in 2019.  But the rail corridor—without its tracks—survives as a section of Eastrail, which will eventually link Snohomish with Renton in a continuous biking and walking trail.  And Northup Way survives as well, continuing to wind around the hill to link the Houghton and Overlake districts.

Resources:

Seattle Daily Times, Sept. 23, 1905, p. 6

Kirklandhistory.org/1905-lwbl-ckc/1905-lwbl-history

Felix Bunel, MyNorthwest.com/157612, Nov. 1, 2019

Lucile McDonald, Bellevue: Its First 100 Years and an undated Journal American article

Vertical File, several photocopies of petitions pertaining to Road 85 (Northup Way)

John Caldbbrick, HistoryLink Essay 9621 re 1890 federal census

AMEC Earth and Environment Inc. “Cultural Resources Assessment of the South Kirkland Park & Ride Transit Oriented Development” Sept. 4, 2007

Hans Miller and Albert Burrows Cabins

The Hans Miller and Albert Burrows cabins will be the final article on “Bellevue’s Early Cabins”.  They are located in Bellevue Parks, but not open to the public.  Hopefully, at some future time, Eastside Heritage Center will be able to do outdoor programs at these sites.

Burrows Cabin, Rody Burrows on porch. (OR/L 79.79.533)

The Burrows cabin is the oldest of the five featured structures.  In 1882, Albert Burrows filed a land claim on the east side of Lake Washington and built a 14 x24 cedar log cabin, chinked with clay and moss. Albert was a Civil War veteran from Iowa and this land was part of the Homestead Act. The area became known as Burrows Landing, just south of Chism Park.

In the 30s, the cabin was moved to Bellevue Way, near Bellevue Square, and later, in 1946, to a site on 112th Ave. NE.  It remained a private residence until 2016 when it was transported to Chism Park. It is thought to be located near its original site and can be seen on the upper lawn of the park.

Miller Cabin at Robinswood Park, 1976. (L88.064.006)

The Hans Miller Cabin is found at Robinswood Park, its original location.  The cabin was built in 1884 by a settler from Denmark, Hans Miller, and built quickly for immediate shelter.  He also built a log barn a few years later.  Both structures were built with axes and cedar trees.

In 1978, the city of Bellevue dismantled the cabin, and reassembled it on its original site.  Most of the logs for the four walls are the original ones that Miller chopped down in the 1880s.  The new shakes on the roof were hand-split like the originals.  A floor was installed and unbreakable glass to help with the vandalism.  Ed Kelly, Jerry Garrison, and Jim Fifer were responsible for the restoration work.  It is still hoped that the cabin can be used at some future date.

---

Resources

Eastside Heritage Center Archives

Three Bellevue Parks

BY margaret Laliberte, EASTSIDE HERITAGE CENTER VOLUNTEER

The Vertical File at Eastside Heritage Center is a treasure trove of original miscellany—largely newspaper clippings—organized into hundreds of topics pertaining to Eastside history.  An old-fashioned browse through a manila file is likely to turn up intriguing and unexpected tidbits for those with a love of our local history.  Take the Bellevue Parks files, for example.  Here’s a sample of some little-known and/or long forgotten stories about three Bellevue parks.

Enatai Park’s “Crater.”  The park, at 10661 S.E. 25th St., is a peaceful sanctuary of big left maple and conifers.  But to access the picnic tables and children’s play area the visitor must make a steep descent into what appears to be a deep crater.  How can this be?  An article by local historian Lucile McDonald dated October 23, 1983 (newspaper unknown) solves the mystery.  At the same time that the first floating bridge between Mercer Island and Seattle was being built in the late 1930s, crews were also improving the old roadway leading east to North Bend to create the four-lane Sunset Highway.  The local Lakeside Gravel Company excavated a large gravel deposit on the site of today’s park to provide surfacing material for the new roadway.  Once the quarry was no longer needed, the crater was used for while as a garbage dump until local residents stymied that use.  The property was sold in 1940, and in 1950 the owner sold the property to the City of Bellevue.

Brian Goldbloom’s “Ruin”

McCormick Park’s granite “ruin.”  A familiar sight in the narrow park that runs along the north side of N.E. 12th St. in downtown Bellevue, across from the Belletini residence, is the enigmatic granite construction that some might feel looks like a ruined cathedral.  Its backstory can be found in a June 23, 1989 Journal American editorial.  The sculptor, Brian Goldbloom, created numerous pieces of public art in the Pacific Northwest during that era, working mainly with natural stone materials.  According to the editorial, his vision of this creation was something that would add a sense of the past to Bellevue, which he felt is too young to have a deep sense of time and place.  He also wanted to create something that would, in his words, “draw people in so they’d want to hang around.”  Ironically, the current pandemic created the circumstances that have drawn small groups of two or three locals at a time to sit on the stone pieces of this artwork to socialize.

Bellefields Nature Park, Bellevue American newspaper clipping.

Bellefields Nature Park’s tikis and totem.  The separate identity of this early park has vanished today, merged into the larger Mercer Slough Nature Park. The land for the original Bellefields Nature Park, at the north end of the slough and running between 118th Ave. N.E. and Bellevue Way, was purchased by the City of Bellevue in 1957.  Because of the deep deposits of peat underlying the site, original plans to develop tennis courts and a golf course had to be shelved. As  Lucile McDonald explained in a 1983 article, “the greens would be bouncy,” and costs to develop the area would be prohibitive. So Siegfried Semrau, the city’s park’s director, decided to develop  a “nature park.” Boys from the state’s Youth Corps built a network of trails through the park over four years, earning  $25 a week for their work. A 1969 article in the Bellevue American noted that the park department’s sign maker, Earl “Bud” Baunsgard. “ has created several wood carvings… to surprise the hiker as he strolls along the trails.  Two tikis and a totem pole greet park users with a trio of brightly colored frogs.”

The tikis and totem are long gone, but a “heritage” park sign built by Baunsgard still stands in the city’s Killarney Park.

Resources

Eastside Heritage Center Archives

How to Preserve the End of an Era?

By Steve Williams, EASTSIDE HERITAGE CENTER VOLUNTEER

At the end of Lakemont Boulevard in south Bellevue sits a red two horse barn, five acres of pasture grasses, and the last coal miner dwelling of the 1920's town of Newcastle. For over 100 years coal was dug out of Cougar Mountain and shipped to San Franscisco, turning Seattle into a major seaport by 1880. Seattle's population then was 3,533; but Newcastle by 1918 had well over 1,000 people living right here at Coal Creek. Note the Company Store, Hotel, and Finnish miner's homes on both sides of Lakemont Boulevard in the photo below. Today the road is in the same place, but it is no longer a dirt track with transport only by horse wagons.  

Photo courtesy of Ruth Swanson Parrott, c. NHS

The last coal miner in the area, Milt Swanson, lived in company house #180 there at the end of Lakemont Boulevard opposite the barn. He worked for the B & R Co. until the end of mining in 1963. For the next 30 years he hosted hikers and school groups in a little museum he established in a renovated chicken shed out behind the house. Milt had maps and tools and stories of work in the tunnels and shafts under everyone's feet. He also founded the Newcastle Historical Society and served as its President for many years. (The new 3rd City of Newcastle made him “Citizen of the Year” in 2008). He and his brother John provided tools and artifacts and stories at 15 events sponsored by the Issaquah Alps Trails Club across the street at the Red Town Trailhead.

The “Return to Newcastle” event happened on the first Sunday in June each year. It was a re-union for the miners and their families, and a chance for the trail club to introduce new residents to the woods and local trails. With help from Harvey Manning and others, those events led directly to saving Coal Creek and Cougar Mountain and turning them into public parks that are wildly popular today. Parking lots are jammed on weekends and sunny afternoons. Trails and fresh air have always been enjoyed by people; but nature and exercise have become really important to all of us in these times of Covid. 

Photo by Bob Cerelli, c. NHS

Photo by Steve Williams, c. EHC

Today that historic house #180 property is owned by an outfit called Isola Homes and they are applying for permits to bulldoze it all flat and wedge 35 private houses in there between the two parks. Local citizens began a movement called “Save Coal Creek” to instead preserve the property as a wildlife crossing, a safer hiker crossing, meadow habitat, and perhaps add some trailhead parking while preserving historic features like the barn. If you enjoyed seeing the coal car in the front yard, the open pasture, and one of the last barns in South Bellevue – the question is “Will Bellevue sacrifice it all for just 35 exclusive and expensive private homes?” A public hearing is anticipated in the spring. Visit www.savecoalcreek.org  for updates and more detailed information.

---

Resources:

“The Coals of Newcastle – A Hundred Years of Hidden History” 2020 edition, the Newcastle Historical Society, ( availble on amazon.com )

“Newcastle” files 183-194, Richard McDonald Collection, the Eastside Heritage Center

“Newcastle's Busy Mining Years” - Seattle Times article, L. McDonald, 10/04/1959

“Seattle in the 1880's” - D. Buerge, 1986 Historical Society of Seattle & King County

“14 Shorter Trail Walks in and around Newcastle” - E. Lundahl, 2018

Larsen Lake Cabin

The next of our five Bellevue cabins is located at the Larsen Lake Blueberry Farm off SE 8th and 148th SE. It was also relocated in 1990 from its original location near Phantom Lake and today serves as a trailhead and link to the Bellevue’s Lake to Lake trail system.

2002.135.01 - Possibly the Larsen Lake Blueberry Farm, circa 1930.

In March 1886, German immigrant, Henry Thode, purchased two tracts of land near Phantom Lake and built a house in 1894.  It was a two-story nine room log house made with hand-hewn logs and shingled on the outside.  Henry and his wife Emilia intended to farm, raise cattle and sell milk to the coal workers at Newcastle.  However, Henry was declared insane later that year and committed to a mental institution. 

He died two years later and Emilia remarried Jacob Kamber.  They continued to live in the Phantom Lake House.

In 1932, Shigeo Masunaga and his wife, Taki, leased the Thode House and farmed ten acres.  The family was forced to leave in April 1942 and were incarcerated at Pinedale, California.  They did not return to Bellevue.

After the war, John Matsuoka leased the Phantom Lake land from Mondo Desimone who now owned the land.  John farmed about 40 acres of the property growing fruit and vegetables. The Matsuoka’s lived in the house until 1966.  The dwellings were abandoned after John and his family moved.

2013.050.001 - House being moved in 1989. Yeizo Masunaga, Yeizo's wife, and Mrs. Taki Masunaga at left.

In 1989, the Danieli family donated the site of the Thode Cabin to the city of Bellevue and moved it to Larsen Lake in 1990.  Renovations were undertaken to preserve and highlight the original construction methods and integrity of the cabin.  A foundation, flooring, stairway, roof, and porch were all replaced.  The shingles were also removed showing the original log walls.

If you are walking around Larsen Lake and the Lake Hills Greenbelt, do stop and check out the “Thode House”. This is an easy cabin to visit even though the inside is not open to the public.  A porch with a swing is located at the front of the house and a seasonal farm stand next door.  At the cabin enjoy the swing and take a look at the hand-hewn logs (Fraser Cabin’s logs were machine hewed).

 Resources:

“The Bellevue Story” Connie Squires, 1967

“Bellevue: It’s First 100 Year” Lucile McDonald, 1984

Asachi Tsuchima, 1952, “Pre-WWII History of Japanese Pioneers in the Clearing and Development of Land in Bellevue”

Fraser Cabin

The city of Bellevue is fortunate to have five historic cabins, all located in Bellevue City Parks. They were built between the 1880s and the 1890s:  Fraser Cabin at Kelsey Creek Park; Hans Miller Cabin at Robinswood Park; Sharp Cabin at the Bellevue Botanical Garden; Thode Cabin at Larsen Lake; and the Burrows Cabin at Chism Beach Park. Only the Fraser Cabin is open for viewing.

The Fraser cabin was originally built in 1888 by two Norwegian loggers who were known for their ability to build log bridges across a ravine in one day. The 16 ft. x 16 ft. cabin was located near the present day Northup Way and 124th St. about a ½ mile from the Fraser’s home. It was built for Daniel Fraser’s sister-in-law, Fanny, and her new husband Steven Rathbun. The newlyweds lived there about a year before moving to Massachusetts. 

2014.005.009 - Crowd gathered outside of the Fraser Cabin, Boy Scouts flag on flagpole. Undated.

When the Fraser’s main house was destroyed by fire in 1890, the cabin was moved to the homesite and later converted to a horse barn. In 1947, Daniel’s son, Don, moved the cabin to the corner of 126th NE and NE 7th. The logs were taken down and numbered as to assure accurate reassembly.

Eventually, Brooks Johnston purchased the property and used the former cabin as a horse barn. Johnston donated the cabin to the King County Parks Department in 1966, but there was a lack of funding for moving it to Marymoor Park. In 1974, Siegfried Semrau, Director of Parks and Recreation for the City of Bellevue Parks Department, accepted the cabin and it was moved to Kelsey Creek Park. Thanks to many generous donors, the cabin was reassembled with new walls, floor, roof, door, and windows and in May of 1975, the City of Bellevue held a Bicentennial Community Designation ceremony at Kelsey Creek.

L 88.064.007 - Siegfried Semrau, Verna Schembrie, Brooks Johnston with the refurbished Fraser Cabin at Kelsey Creek Park. Circa 1974.

Because of flood mitigation, the cabin was moved again in 2008 to its present location just south of the barns. Thanks to some creative engineering, the entire structure was moved up the hill and placed on a new foundation. A new ramp was built to make it more accessible to all.

Eastside Heritage Center opens the cabin during major events: Sheep Shearing and the Farm Fair. It is also open to the public one Saturday a month from May through September.

Resources

Eastside Heritage Center Archives

A Port on the Lake

BY margaret Laliberte, EASTSIDE HERITAGE CENTER VOLUNTEER

Growth on the Eastside during the first half of the 20th century was possible only because of the motley assortment of boats, from small launches to sizeable steamers and double-ended ferries, that serviced numerous docks between Juanita and Newcastle and on Mercer Island. Many may have heard of John Anderson, who built up something of an empire, certainly a monopoly, his little steamers and launches linking Seattle with Eastside landings and wharves.  A story perhaps lesser known is that during that period public entities created public ferry systems on the lake.  Between 1901 and 1950 the relationship between public and private groups ricocheted between bare-knuckle competition and close intertwining rife with conflict of interest, as various arrangements and systems were experimented with. The concept of a ferry system as a public utility was evolving.  It fit in with the Progressive political movement popular in the state in the early 20th century, but its parameters remained unclear.

As early as 1892 John Anderson was running the ‘Winnifred’ between Leschi and Newcastle. (He was not the first or only operator on the lake.)   Over the years he bought and sold vessels and eventually began building them as well.  In 1900 the King County commissioners bought a ferry, the ‘King County of Kent,’  from Moran Brothers shipyards in Seattle. However, rather than operate the boat itself, within a few months the county leased it for three years to Bartsch and Tompkins Transportation Company (which operated a shipyard at Houghton that eventually became the Lake Washington Shipyards.) That decision precipitated a lawsuit; it wasn’t yet at all clear just what public ownership and operation of a ferry system ought to entail.  It might be acceptable for public funds to be used to buy boats, but some groups believed the operation should be left to private enterprise. Eventually the state Supreme Court upheld the county’s contract.  Meanwhile, King County purchased several docks around the lake for ferry use, beginning with those at Madison Park and Kirkland.  Over the next few years it added ones at Mercer Slough, Juanita, Newport, Medina, and Kennydale.

L 75.0106b - Ferry ‘King County’ at the Kirkland dock, about 1910. She was the first double-ended ferry on Lake Washington

In 1906 Anderson incorporated the Anderson Steamboat Co., and in November of that year he merged it with the Bartsch and Tompkins company. As manager of the new company, Anderson inherited the ‘King County‘ lease along with several boats that B&T had built, owned and operated. A year later Anderson bought Bartsch and Tompkins’ Houghton shipyard and renamed it Anderson Shipyard.

In 1908 the ‘King County’ became derelict and sank near Houghton.  However, the county was having a new ferry, the ‘Washington,’ built. Until it could be launched, the county contracted with Anderson to run his own boats, for a monthly “subsidy” of $300, on the ‘King County’s’ route. (This was a significant improvement for Anderson: the county’s lease for the “King County’ had provided a monthly payment of $200.) He was to run three round trips daily between Kirkland and Madison Park and charge “regular fares.”  In future years, whenever the ‘Washington’ was out of service, Anderson would step in with his own boat.  (Controversy continued over how much he ought to be paid. In 1911, for example, when the ‘Washington’ was out of service for repairs, Anderson charged the county $800 for the use of his ‘Dorothy’ and a scow for a month on the Madison Park-Kirkland run.)

The ‘Washington’ was launched in early May.  Meanwhile the county set the new fares.  Foot passengers—and sheep—each paid 10 cents one-way, car and driver 25 cents.  Commuting school children got 20 trips for $1.00. 

By Fall public support for the new ferry and its service appeared in the newspapers.  Writers noted that fares and freight charges had been much reduced and the number of daily runs increased. One writer noted that the county had saved the bonus it would have paid Anderson for “the worst attempt at service it was possible to imagine.”  Meanwhile, Anderson continued to build up his fleet of lake steamers.  The Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition was coming next year, and he would be ready to offer lake excursions on his fleet of 14 boats.  Once the AYPE was over, he was able to buy boats that a competitor, Interlaken Steamship Co., had lost to its creditors.

2013.046.092 - Rubie Sharpe’s ticket on Interlaken SS Co, “Meydenbauer Bay Route”

1911 brought a major development: in March the state legislature enacted the Port District Act. It authorized a county’s voters to establish a local port district to develop and operate waterways, wharves, railroad and water terminals and ferry systems. King County activists, fed up with the stranglehold the railroad companies had over the waterfront on Elliott Bay, rushed to draft legislation for the September election.  It was adopted, the county-wide Port of Seattle was created, the first such port in the state.  Port commissioners were named who set to work to create a plan for projects and financing, to be presented to the voters in March for approval. The final plan proposed included a $150,000 bond issue for a lake ferry.

The public weighed in, pro and con.  The Seattle Times and Seattle Star carried advertisements from the Bellevue Ferry Committee, a pro public ferry group formed to represent the interests of Eastside farmers, who wanted to transport their horse teams across the lake with their produce.  The Taxpayers’ Economy League and John Anderson were opposed.  Some accused supporters of being real estate speculators on the Eastside, just in it to benefit from increased land values.  A public ferry would inevitably be a “ruinous” financial proposition. The Ferry Committee countered that the private ferry business had a death grip on Eastside farmers. It appealed to Seattle Star readers, who it claimed subscribed to the paper because it had always stood for “reasonable public ownership as a relief from private monopoly.”

Proposition 6 passed easily on March 5, 1912.  The Port commissioners, who would run its new ferry system on the lake until 1919 alongside the county’s operation, commissioned a new double-ended vehicle ferry. The ‘Leschi’ was launched December 6, 1913 before a crowd of between 4,000 and 5,000 people. She could carry 2,500 passengers and 50 autos and teams. 

L75.0090 - The venerable ‘Leschi’ ferried vehicles and passengers between 1913 and 1950. She had a brief second act on the route between Seattle and Vashon Island and finally ended her days as a salmon cannery in Alaska

The Port began proceedings to condemn Anderson Steamboat Co.’s dock property at Leschi, for use of the ferry run to Bellevue and Medina.  The matter was finally settled in 1914 with the payment to Anderson of $20,000 for the facility.

Anderson built two ferries in 1914, the ‘Lincoln’ for the Port of Seattle’s Madison Park-Kirkland run and the smaller ‘Issaquah’ for his own route between Leschi and Newport, where cars connected to the Sunset Highway (today’s I-90) heading East.  The ‘Issaquah’ had a hardwood dance floor for the evening cruises she made on the lake after a day ferrying cars.  But Anderson was losing money on the ferry segment of his business.  In 1917 he withdrew his last boat, the ‘Issaquah’ from the lake and, with the opening of the Ballard locks, turned to building large ships in the Houghton shipyard for the looming world war. Eastside residents immediately complained about the loss of ferry service with Anderson’s withdrawal from the scene. The Port Commission contracted with him once again to run the ‘Issaquah’ until the end of the year. Anderson sold her to a Bay Area ferry concern the next year.

By 1918 the whole state of affairs was complicated, and hardly anyone was happy. The Port of Seattle was expanding vigorously and would have been profitable had not its ferry operations run large deficits. On Lake Washington the County and Port ran large vehicle ferries between Madison Park and Kirkland and Leschi and Bellevue/Medina respectively, on the rationale that these routes connected to important public highways and roads in the area. A newspaper article suggested that neither entity wanted to assume control of a consolidated system, even though that would be more efficient. Anderson’s ‘Issaquah’ was gone now. Private interests had to try to make profitable businesses serving the smaller docks on the lake, such as Mercer Island, Juanita, Beaux Arts, etc. The Port competed in these areas as well when it had the launches ‘Mercer’ and ‘Dr. Martin’ built and placed them on runs from Leschi  to Mercer Island and Yarrow Point respectively. It became virtually impossible for private interests to remain on the lake.  Public opinion was divided: Some felt public ferries should be limited to the routes to Kirkland, Medina and Bellevue.  Others believed the entire system ought to be in public hands, which the Seattle Daily Times pointed out would amount to a public Mosquito Fleet.

On August 15, 1918 the port and county commissioners reached an agreement whereby the Port of Seattle would transfer its two ferries and two launches to King County on January 1, 1919. The ferry ‘Robert Bridges’ ran on Puget Sound, the others on Lake Washington.   The position of Superintendent of Transportation was created.  When the man appointed to the post died unexpectedly within a week, the position was given to---John Anderson. Anderson named Harrie Tompkins, his long-time business associate, Assistant Superintendent.

Thus began a long period of intertwining public and private interests.  Anderson as a public official was now in the position of benefiting himself as a private businessman.  Initially the County leased all of his boats; in 1920 it bought them all, for $88,000. Subsequent investigations alleged that between 1919 and 1921 the County, under Anderson’s leadership, spent huge amounts on facilities and boats, repairing and repainting vessels (often in Anderson’s own Houghton shipyard). Repairs on the ‘Leschi’ alone totaled over $70,000.  There was apparently some unusual bookkeeping: costs of improvements such as docks were treated as operating expenses for the current year, rather than being spread out over their lifetimes.  The new waiting room constructed at a new, second Medina dock had a dance floor and was apparently used as a community center as well.   Anderson maintained an office in the Alaska Building rather than in the County’s workaday facility at the Leschi dock. At the same time the seven daily runs to Meydenbauer Bay in Bellevue were terminated; the boat now left just from Medina.  As the years’ operating deficiencies came to the taxpayers’ attention, some suspected that the commissioners might be deliberately creating a financial disaster in order to give them an incentive to offload the system.

1998.02.11 - King County Ferry System. “When Foggy Please Ring Gong.” Schedule lists times for both Seattle-Kirkland route and Seattle-Medina route.

And that is just what happened in December 1921.  The county commissioners leased its entire operation to John Anderson—apparently officially to a corporation called Lake Washington Ferries-- for a period of 10 years. No bids had been called for, and the whole matter was conducted almost surreptitiously. The agreement provided for no lease payments. In exchange for keeping all the system’s revenues, Anderson had to maintain routes and service and keep the boats in top condition at his own expense.  He could not raise fares. But he could return boats whenever he wished.   Finally, in lieu of a cash bonus for taking on the system, he was promised 20,000 barrels of oil, worth (according to some) $30,000.

The question that was in the air was,  How could Anderson make the ferry system profitable when under his watch it so clearly hadn’t been?  The public, particularly a Bellevue group led by Tom Daugherty, pressured the county until a grand jury was convened. Its report, after a nine-week investigation into the situation of the past several years, led to the county prosecutor’s  returning indictments in July 1922 against the three county commissioners, John Anderson, Harry Tompkins, and Johnson’s brother Adolf, for misuse of county funds for three specific vessel repairs and refurbishing and for misappropriating $700 in fuel oil.  Tompkins declared that the charges were “a bunch of bunk originating in Bellevue.” Defense attorney Fulton stated, “The indictments are the work of disgruntled people who have been unable to get personal favors from the commissioners.” A trial of the three commissioners was set for September in view of the November general election.  Tompkin’s and the Andersons’ trials would follow.

But the indictment imbroglio turned out to be something of a house of cards.  On the morning of the commissioners’ September trial, the prosecutor, in the presence of four of the grand jurors, interviewed his witnesses. (Bizarrely, one of the witnesses was John Anderson, who was to testify about the repair contracts’ terms.)  To his dismay, they all either couldn’t remember having given their testimony, couldn’t recall the facts charged, or claimed now that those facts could not possibly be true.  Faced with a total debacle, the prosecutor asked the judge to dismiss the three charges against the commissioners for lack of evidence.  He agreed.  The three still faced two indictments on repairs of the launch ‘Mercer’ and misuse of the fuel oil. 

L 80.028 - The ferry “Washington” of Kirkland on Lake Washington.

While the remaining charges were still pending against all the defendants, the local media kept the affair in the public spotlight.  Beginning in January 1923 the Seattle Star published a series entitled “The Ferry Deal.”  It began with six brief pieces by W.E. Chambers, a former King County commissioner, who explained how the county had gotten into the ferry business and its entanglements with John Anderson.  In mid-March, “in line with [its] policy to publish both sides of any controversy,” the Star had Thomas Daugherty offer his own six-part interpretation of events.

 Two weeks before his own trial at the end of March 1923, John Anderson was called before the county commissioners to explain how in one year he was able to take the ferry system he had run as a county employee and, as the private lessee, turn 1921’s $234,000 deficit into 1922’s $40,000 profit and decrease disbursements by 200%.  He explained quite simply that he could run the system now as a business—cut salaries, employees, unfavorable routes-- free from the constraints he had had as a public official, when “politics interfered.” (Left unmentioned was the fact as Superintendent of Transportation he had front-loaded the huge expenditures for new facilities and refurbished vessels before the commissioners turned the system over to him.)

The rest of the story ended abruptly.  When the Anderson group went to trial at month’s end, the judge, after hearing all the county’s evidence and without waiting for the defense to present its case, issued a directed verdict in favor of the defendants and chided the prosecutor for having brought the indictments on the weak evidence he had.  That ended the matter for the commissioners as well.

The lake ferries were now all being operated privately, although the county owned the boats leased to Anderson. In 1924 Anderson’s Lake Washington Ferries advertised daily excursions on the county’s steamer ‘Atlanta’  between Lake Washington and the Seattle waterfront through the Ship Canal and locks.  Lake cruises and excursions were more lucrative than the ferry routes.  In 1925 Anderson announced that he would turn boats back on the following January 1 (which the lease allowed him to do) unless the county would pay $70,000 to buy and install a new engine on the ‘Lincoln.  ’ Or the county could just give him the boat and he would pay for the engine. As one wag suggested in the newspaper, maybe Anderson could compromise with an Evinrude outboard.

Anderson persevered; in 1927 his lease was extended without fanfare until 1951. But it was becoming clear that the real culprit in the “unprofitability” of ferry service was the automobile.  Paving of the highway encircling the lake was completed in 1923, and the East Channel bridge to Mercer Island’s east shore opened in that year.  A floating bridge between the island and Seattle had been proposed in 1921, but it wasn’t seriously considered until 1930.  After funds became available through the Public Works Administration and serious planning began, one final major showdown over the ferry lease developed.

The Washington Toll Bridge Authority feared  it would be difficult to pay off the bonds, which had financed the bridge,  with bridge tolls  so long as competition in the form of lake ferries continued.  Under this pressure, in December 1938 the county commissioners cancelled Anderson’s lease.  He fought back by filing a claim for anticipated damages.  Negotiations among the three parties finally led to a settlement.  The county would not cancel the lease, and the Toll Authority would pay Anderson $35,000. In exchange, he would terminate the Leschi-Medina route and the runs to Mercer Island once the bridge opened. The run between Madison Park and Kirkland would continue to operate.

There was one final unpleasant chapter to play out.  The floating bridge opened on July 2, 1940 and that month Anderson announced that he was returning the ferry ‘Washington’ and the docks at Medina and Roanoke to the county and planned to return the launch ‘Mercer’ the following month.  When the boats were returned they were found to be in very poor condition. One had had its federal license cancelled because of unseaworthiness. The commissioners ruled that Anderson would have to pay a sum, as yet undetermined, in lieu of repairing the vessels.  Anderson countered that the boats were “just wore out” and that if they had been owned by a private business, they would have been “depreciated off the books long ago.”  The lease, however, provided that he was to return all boats leased in good condition.  Appraisers from each side were unable to agree on the present value of the boats; the county’s property agent was left to salvage what he could from the two boats.

John Anderson died of a heart attack on May 18, 1941.  His widow, Emilie, and his longtime right-hand man, Harrie Tompkins, continued to operate the Kirkland ferry under the lease with the county.  During World War II the ferry ‘Lincoln’ ferried shipyard workers between Madison Park and the  Lake Washington Shipyard at Houghton.  The ‘Leschi’ continued to make the Kirkland-Madison Park run.

In July 1947 Emilie Anderson wrote the county commissioners announcing that Lake Washington Ferries would not continue its lease beyond the end of the year and might suspend ferry service before then. But the enterprise just kept staying afloat.  On January 30, 1950, however, the Seattle Times ran three photos of teary longtime passengers and onlookers—including faithful Harrie Tompkins--saying goodbye to the ‘Leschi’ on what was expected to be its final run.  But no, there was still more.  Members of the union operating the boat attempted to continue to operate it so long as revenues could meet wages.  Their effort could not be sustained, however.  On August 31, 1950 the Leschi made its truly final run on the lake, and vehicle ferry service between the Eastside and Seattle ended.  In November the county commissioners voted to offer to the cities of Kirkland and Seattle the piers and land adjacent to them at their old ferry landings, for use as public parks. And so this colorful and complicated piece of local history finally came to an end. 

1998BHS.027.027 - Leschi’s last trip, leaving Medina

References

Books

The H.W. McCurdy Marine History of the Pacific Northwest, Gordon Newell, ed., Seattle: Superior Publishing Co. 1966

Ely, Arline, Our Foundering Fathers: The Story of Kirkland, Kirkland Public Library, 1975

Faber, Jim, Steamer’s Wake, Seattle: Enetai Press, 1985

McDonald, Lucile, The Lake Washington Story, Seattle: the Superior Publishing Co., 1979

Oldham, et. Al, Rising Tides and Tailwinds: The Story of the Port of Seattle, Seattle: Port of Seattle, 2011

Articles

McCauley, Mattthew, The Era of the Double-ended Ferry on Lake Washington,” Kirkland Reporter, Aug. 31, 2001

HistoryLink Essays #9726 (Port of Seattle Commissioners Meet), #2638 (ferry ‘Leschi’ last run), #2040 (‘Leschi’ launch)

John Anderson, Shipbuilder, en. Wikipedia.org/wiki/John_L._Anderson_(shipbuilder)

Newspaper articles

Seattle Daily Times

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Seattle Star

Green Tea Canisters

The Yabuki brothers, Kameji and Terumatsu, each immigrated to Bellevue in the early 1900s. They owned and operated greenhouses - growing cucumbers, tomatoes, geraniums, chrysanthemums, lilies, and more. Both brothers were extremely active in the Japanese community of Bellevue. Following their incarceration during WWII, Kameji relocated to Portland, Oregon while Terumatsu returned to Bellevue.

Eastside Heritage Center was recently gifted with items belonging to the Yabuki family. Among these items there were a variety of tea canisters sourced from Japan.

---

The earliest records of tea in Japan date back to the 800s CE. Camellia sinensis seeds were brought from China by Buddhist monks and cultivation began.

Sencha (煎茶"boiled tea") is the most popular form of green tea in Japan, making up 80% of the tea produced there. Sencha is a loose leaf tea, as opposed to the powdered Matcha used in traditional tea ceremonies. It is produced by steaming the leaves briefly to prevent oxidation, then rolling, shaping, and drying the leaves.

Green tea would not have been readily available on the Eastside for much of the early 20th century. Food was grown locally or sourced through Seattle; requiring the use of ferries to cross Lake Washington. With the construction of the Lacey V. Murrow Bridge in 1940, access to the Port of Seattle was much easier. Both of these canisters were sourced from the North Coast Importing Company of Seattle.

2020.002.001 - Tin can with paper label. "Specially Selected Japan Green Tea, New Crop, Packed for North Coast Importing Co., Seattle, Wash. Made in Japan"

Founded by Tadashi Yamaguchi in 1919, the North Coast Importing Company was located in what is today known as the International District of Seattle. By the early 1950s, his sons Kay and Minoru were operating the import, export, and grocery wholesaler at 515-517 Maynard Avenue, the Freedman Building.

“FREEDMAN BUILDING (Adams Hotel) 513-517 Maynard Avenue South. built 1910. Distinguished by one of the most elaborate facades in the district, the Freedman is a four-story mid-block hotel with 80 single rooms and two storefronts bays at the street level.”

— National Register of Historic Places

---

2020.002.002 - Tin can with paper label. "Japan Green Tea, Hatsutsumi Brand, Packed for North Coast Importing Co., Seattle, Wash. Net Weight 1/2 lb, Products of Occupied Japan."

These tea canisters were likely sourced from the Yamaguchi’s company in the early 1950s. We know this by carefully examining their labels. At the bottom of this paper label it reads “Products of Occupied Japan”. The occupation of Japan by Allied forces lasted from 1945–1952.

Following WWII, Allied forces lead by the United States occupied the nation of Japan. General MacArthur oversaw this occupation and instated a series of changes to their government. The country’s constitution was overhauled, the powers of the Emperor were further limited, and sweeping social and economic reforms were implemented.

The occupation ended in 1952 after the signing of the San Francisco Peace Treaty. Under this treaty, the sovereignty of Japan (with exception of the Ryukyu Islands) was restored.

---

Commonplace items have the capacity to hold a great deal of historical information. The tea canisters featured here share the stories of local Japanese-American consumers and business owners, the importance of cultural food practices, and the implications of global politics. They may be small, humble things, but household goods are vitally important to the future understanding of our shared history.

---

Donated in memory of Alan Hideo and Chiye Yabuki

---

Resources

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

Sakamoto, H. (2019, January 19). Snapshots in Time: Left to right: Kay Yamaguchi to Min Yamaguchi. North Coast Importing Co. was located on Maynard, next to Hong Kong Restaurant Left to right: Kay Yamaguchi and Min Yamaguchi. Photo by Dean Wong, 1982. International Examiner. https://iexaminer.org/snapshots-in-time-left-to-right-kay-yamaguchi-to-min-yamaguchi-north-coast-importing-co-was-located-on-maynard-next-to-hong-kong-restaurantleft-to-right-kay-yamaguchi-and-min-yamaguchi-photo-by/.

Google. (n.d.). Federal Register. Google Books. https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/hZkUNre_m6UC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA5430&dq=North%2BCoast%2BImporting%2BCo.%2BMaynard%2Bst.

Densho. (n.d.). https://ddr.densho.org/media/ddr-densho-201/ddr-densho-201-464-mezzanine-05410bbe7e.pdf.

NVC Foundation Japanese American Memorial Wall. Internee Tadashi "Tad" Yamaguchi. (n.d.). http://nvcfmemorialwall.org/profile/view/683.

Wikimedia Foundation. (2021, June 3). Occupation of Japan. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_Japan.

The Importance of Green Tea in Japanese Culture. Umami Insider. (2018, February 9). https://www.umami-insider.com/importance-of-green-tea-in-japanese-culture/.

Wikimedia Foundation. (2021, June 11). Green tea. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_tea.

Tea. in Japan. (n.d.). https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2041.html.

National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. (n.d.). https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/GetAsset/NRHP/86003153_text.