[WWI-1938]-[WWII-1974]-[1975-1990]-[1991-2005]-[2006-2030]
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| 1939 construction of I-90 across Lake Washington was instrumental in changing Bellevue from a farming community into a bustling suburb and the bridge opened July 1940 as Lacey V. Murrow Floating Bridge. | |
World War II begins in 1939.
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The Annual Bellevue Strawberry Event is canceled in 1942.
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1944
More than a quarter of the American people left behind city apartments & row houses to buy new homes of their own thanks to the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 known as G.I. Bill.
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In 1944 Louis Weinzirl purchased 45 acres of farmland on Larsen Lake and planted blueberries.
He sowed multiple varieties, which harvest from early July through mid-September.
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1945
World War II ends in 1945.
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June 11th 1945, the board of directors of the Overlake School District voted to give a quitclaim deed to the heirs of the John R. Kinnear / Rebecca Kinnear estate for return of the Main Street School property, because it was no longer used for public school purposes.
On July 12 1945, the Enatai Community Club purchased the former Beaux Arts School property for $500.00.
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1946
1946 The Bellevue Chamber of Commerce is established.
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Between 1946 and 1948, J. Gordon and Mary Schneidler subdivided and sold more than a dozen lots in a 5-acre subdivision in Clyde Hill. Each deed of sale included the following restriction: "This property shall not be resold, leased, rented or occupied except to or by persons of the Aryan race."
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1947
1947 All the whaling ships leave Meydenbauer Bay when American Pacific Whaling goes bankrupt.
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| Hunting ships last longer if stored in fresh water. Whaling fleet [above] docked in Meydenbauer Bay in Bellevue, ca. 1935 |
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[ 1950 ] - [ 1974 ] : U.S. involvement in Korea, Vietnam; Nixon and Watergate; Bellevue grows!
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1950, Korean War starts.
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https://www.archives.gov/files/research/military/korean-war/casualty-lists/wa-alpha.pdf
FLOYD, JOHN CURTIS AIR FORCE 2NDLT Born 1925-04-05 BELLEVUE
Died 1950-12-17
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The Overlake School District becomes the Bellevue School District #405.
It receives the status of a first class school district.
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1951
A ballot to incorporate the city of Bellevue is defeated, 92 - 72
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1951 First step in community planning seen in the area represented by “The Bellevue Story”, a long range plan for the Bellevue Schools. It was developed by local citizens, the school staff and the King County Planning Department and Commission. The plan initiated an advanced school site acquisition program throughout the district. It was revived in 1958 and again in 1962.
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1952
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1952 Clyde Hill Elementary opened.
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1952 First serious school bus accident in the Bellevue School District. A young boy was badly bruised after being hit by a car that passed a bus while it was stopped. It happened on US 2A near Wilburton as the bus was taking students home from the Factoria School.
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1953
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On March 21st 1953, Bellevue is incorporated as a third-class city
(status no longer exists under RCW), and organized as a Non-Charter Code City, with a population of 5,940 and a land area of about 5 square miles.
Charles Wesley Bovee is elected its first mayor, and City Hall is located in the VFW Hall, formerly Main Street School. As the decade proceeds, a number of other Eastside communities follow Bellevue's lead, incorporating as third and fourth-class towns.
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| Phil Reily revises Bellevue sign to reflect Bellevue's newly incorporated status as Gene Boyd (left) looks on, March 31, 1953 | ||  | | 1954 | Real-estate investor R.H. Conner, with builders George Bell and Ted Valdez, acquired 1200 acres of wetlands, fertile slopes and timbered hills for a planned community. They bought land from Modern Homebuilders and got rezoning approval for city lots centering on winding Lake Hills Boulevard. Envisioning a livable future neighborhood, the men prepared to create an instant community with streets, infrastructure, shopping and public areas, and 4000 homes || | 1955 |
The City of Bellevue quickly began annexing surrounding territory, but many in the nearby points area weren't "interested" in joining the new city. The peninsula area on Lake Washington instead created smaller cities of majority White citizens; Clyde Hill incorporated 10 days after Bellevue; Medina and Hunts Point in 1955. Yarrow Point, 1959.
Though there was some early talk of Medina incorporating with all three "points", only Evergreen Point ultimately incorporated with Medina. Evergreen Point is the westernmost of a group of the three small peninsulas on the east side of Lake Washington, King County, Washington. It is situated between the main body of the lake and Fairweather Bay.
Most notable for being the namesake of the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge. Hunts Point was the first to make a move to break away on its own, filing a petition for incorporation as a fourth-class town with the Board of King County Commissioners on April 25, 1955.
Three weeks after incorporation became official on August 22, 1955, Hunt's Point approved a set of development codes, which set minimum lot sizes (in 2015 the minimum residential lot size is 12,000 square feet) and regulated subdivisions in the new town.
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The Hunt's Point formal development codes were written by resident John Ehrlichman (1925-1999):
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| Ehrlichman served as the town attorney for Hunts Point for the rest of the 1950s and well into the 1960s. After Richard Nixon (1913-1994) was elected president in 1968 Ehrlichman worked in the Nixon administration, first as White House counsel then as chief of domestic policy. In 1973 when he was implicated in the Watergate break-in that ultimately drove Nixon from office. Ehrlichman was forced to resign and briefly returned to Medina, where most of his neighbors welcomed him. | |
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1955 - Bellevue was declared an
ALL AMERICAN CITY
by the National Municipal League
and LOOK Magazine.
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1955, September 27 – King County Planning Commission approved the
preliminary master plan of the Lake Hills Community
In 1955, Lake Hills was proposed as the largest planned community in the Pacific Northwest.
The Lake Hills community opens with six display homes.
Known as "Boeing Nursery", where workers would raise families.
Seattle Times describes a “self-contained city in a country atmosphere”.
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1956
1956 City of Bellevue starts to buy many old farm properties for parks.
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1956 Puget Power moves to a new four-story headquarters in Bellevue.
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The first Bellevue park bond passed in 1956.
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1957
Phantom Lake Elementary school, new Medina Elementary opened.
Highland Elementary opened at 14220 8th Street; Highland Junior High opened.
Factoria School closed/ used for special services.
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1958
Woodridge Elementary opened (officially dedicated in fall 1958)
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1958 Lake Hills Elementary, Sunset Elementary opened.
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Killarney Glen Park was one of the first parks to emerge in Bellevue after the city’s incorporation.
This allowed the city to purchase the 10-acre parcel of marsh and woodland in 1958 for $25,000.
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In 1958, 250 dedicated families in the Lake Hills neighborhood of Bellevue broke ground on the Olympic Athletic Club, originally envisioned as a “club house and outdoor pool".
The following year, they renamed it the Samena Swim & Recreation Club.
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1959
The city held a park naming contest in April of 1959. Catherine Gene Walker, a seventh-grader at Bellevue High School, selected the winning name “Killarney Glen.” This name may refer to the nearby Killarney Way or one of the three pieces of land in the immediate vicinity that were platted under the names “Killarney,” “Killarney No 2,” and “Killarney No. 3.”
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1959 Sammamish High School opened and the first traffic light is installed at Main Street and Bellevue Way in Bellevue.
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1961
In 1961 L. Joe Miller took the position of City Manager of Bellevue, a place he had never visited prior to that point (City Managers are still not required to be Residents of their own City).
Born in Wenatchee, WA in 1924, Joe Miller was Bellevue City Manager for 17 years, retiring from the position in 1977. He and his brother joined the Navy during World War II.
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| Crossroads Shopping Center opened in 1961. |
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| Completed in April 1962 at a cost of $4.5 million, the Seattle Space Needle was finished in less than one year. The last elevator car was installed the day before the 1962 World's Fair opened on April 21. | | 1963 Tillicum Junior High opened. (now Tillicum Middle School). | | August 28, 1963 the opening of the second cross-lake bridge, the 520 Albert D. Rosellini Memorial Bridge (Evergreen Point Floating Bridge) solidified Bellevue's role as the central hub in Seattle's eastern suburbs -- a decade that also saw Bellevue’s first big box stores at Overlake. |
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| Governor Al Rosellini (holding scissors) and Seattle Mayor Gordon Clinton, opening ceremony, Evergreen Point Floating Bridge | The Crossroads community was annexed in 1964. | 1964 Northern Pacific Railroad plats for Bellevue stations: | |
1965
The Old Bellevue Main Street School is condemned and torn down;
The Bellevue Fire Department formed.
Chism Beach Park was purchased in chunks by the City of Bellevue between 1965 and 1978.
Total purchase price: $252,000
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1966
The Bellevue Library moves into a new building on Main Street next to City Hall.
Bellevue's first "skyscraper," the 400 Building, is completed. It is located on 108th Avenue NE and NE 4th.
1966 - Bellevue Community College opens under the auspices of the Bellevue School District on Newport High School’s campus (in portable buildings) with about 450 students and 40 faculty members.
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1967
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| Aerial view of Crossroads Mall shopping center, Bellevue, February 24, 1967 |
1967, Isaac Lind Bechtel Jr., son of Isaac Kinsey Bechtel and Isabelle Bechtel, died and was buried in Kirkland, Washington.
1967, the Washington State Legislature passed the Community College Act, which created a statewide community college system and separated Bellevue Community College from the Bellevue School District.
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1968
Bellevue’s population is 29,500;
Youth Eastside Services begins.
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1968 Draft Resistance-Seattle (DR), local chapter of a larger national network, together with Students for a Democratic Society at U.W., organized anti-war organizations at area high schools (Queen Anne, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Rainier Beach, Ingraham, West Seattle, Shorecrest, Bellevue, Sammamish, and Sealth)
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The East Bellevue Community Council establishment was empowered by state law with approval/disapproval authority over certain land-use actions in Lake Hills.
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| March 6, 1969: Bellevue American reads “College Construction 85% Complete” 1969, the $5 million Bellevue Community College construction of 96-acre site near Eastgate was completed, and began fall quarter on its new campus with 2,200 full-time students in September. |
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1969 M. Frank Odle Middle School opened.
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1970
Annexations bump population to 61,196, making Bellevue WA state’s fourth-largest city.
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The city of Bellevue purchased "Larsen Lake" area blueberry farm in 1970 as part of a 63-acre parcel that would become Lake Hills Greenbelt Park. The Overlake Blueberry Farm at Mercer Slough Park and the Larsen Lake Blueberry Farm are owned by the city and leased to farmers.
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1973
Phase two of the Bellevue Community College construction, completed in 1973, doubled the size of the campus, and included a 300-seat theater (the largest public theater in Bellevue at the time)
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1974
The Bellevue Downtown Development Board signed its articles of incorporation on June 19, 1974.
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In 1974 the Lake Hills Connector opened, and the two concrete-and-steel sections of the Wilburton Trestle added; The steel-girder Burlington Northern Bridge is replaced with a tunnel under Interstate 405 at the Wilburton interchange.
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| Most recently moved to Kelsey Creek Farm in 1974, the Fraser Cabin was built in 1888 roughly at Northup Way & 124th Ave NE. |
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