[WWI-1938]-[WWII-1974]-[1975-1990]-[1991-2005]-[2006-2020]
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| In 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.
and a lunchroom that served elementary students from all 3 "points" and Clyde Hill,
until it burned down in May 1950.
(Hunts Point students went to high school in Kirkland
until 1942, and Bellevue thereafter.)
east of 156th ave SE and north of Interstate 90 near Phantom Lake.
This aerial photo is from 1969. It did not become active until after World War II ended.
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and used it for a barracks until January 1944
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| President Truman reviews the Japanese American 442nd Regimental Combat Team |
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Dec. 7, 1941, Japan attacked American forces at Pearl Harbor.
The opportunity to push the Japanese farmers off their lands finally came.
A number of Nikkei civic leaders, including Tom Matsuoka, were arrested by the FBI
within the first day after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Confusion and fear reigned throughout the community.
Miller Freeman called for and got a meeting of Japanese community leaders
with the apparently self-appointed “Special Committee” whose work was announced
in a front-page brief in the Bellevue American.
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From 1942 to 1945, it was the policy of the U.S. government that people of Japanese descent would be interred in isolated camps. In 1942, 90% of the agricultural workforce in the Bellevue area were of Japanese ancestry. All of these farmers and their families were forcibly interned in Japanese internment camps established during World War II by President Franklin Roosevelt through his Executive Order 9066.
Overall 110,000 Japanese-Americans were taken to concentration camps across western States.
Bellevue Grade School - Fifth Grade 1940 - 1941,
just before World War II and Matsuoka incarceration
at Pinedale Assembly Center near Fresno, California.
Takeo (Tom) Matsuoka's son, Ty, is among the students in the second row from the top.
In 1942, Takeo went to the Chinook area and voluntarily worked in the beet fields in order to leave incarceration. Takeo and his wife chose to stay in Montana, returning once in 1946 and leaving again for the East. His son Ty did move back much later, in 1985.
Likewise, in 1943, Yoshio (John) requested a transfer and was moved to Hunt, Idaho where he was required to get permission to work on a sugar beet farm. In 1944, Yoshio moved with his wife and daughter to Michigan for a work opportunity. They eventually returned to Washington towards the end of the 1940s for the birth of their second daughter.
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The Annual Bellevue Strawberry Event is canceled in 1942.
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The second Wilburton Hill dairy barn was built in 1943-44 by Mr. John Michaels
(the north barn now known as the Education Barn) and dairy herd increased in size.
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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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| Kemper Freeman Sr |
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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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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 quick claim deed to the heirs of the
John R. Kinnear and Rebecca Kinnear estate
for the 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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After the end of WWII, John Michaels sold the old Duey farmstead
to Ray and Nettie Fisher.
They phased out the dairy operation and began raising Hereford beef cattle.
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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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In 1946, Kemper Freeman Sr., father of Kemper Freeman Jr., opened the first mall, Bellevue Square, in downtown Bellevue -- where strawberry farms had been just a few years earlier. This caused unprecedented business growth nearby, which has continued unabated into the 1990s.
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and joined him on his farm in Bellevu; they raised sons Phil and Bruce and daughter Jennie.
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In 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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father of F. Kemper Freeman Sr and
son of Confederate soldier Legh Richmond Freeman,
pays a nickel on the Lake Washington Floating bridge in 1949.
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| L. Miller Freeman liked a joke about "looking Indian" and was nicknamed "Big Chief". |
[ 1950 ] - [ 1974 ] : U.S. involvement in Korea, Vietnam; Nixon and Watergate; Bellevue grows!
1950, Korean War starts.
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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In 1951 a ballot to incorporate the city of Bellevue is defeated, 92 - 72.
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The 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:
Clyde Hill Elementary opened.
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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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.
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| Phil Reily revises the Bellevue sign to reflect Bellevue's newly incorporated status as Gene Boyd (left) looks on, March 31, 1953 | ||  In 1954 real-estate investor R.H. Conner, in conjunction with the builders George Bell and Ted Valdez, acquired land which sprawled over 1200 acres of wetlands, fertile slopes and timbered hills for a planned community. They bought the 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 || | | Nettie and Ray Fisher built the current Kelsey Creek farm house in 1954 and moved from their home on Mercer Island to live on the Fisher Farm. Nettie Fisher was born on September 2, 1910. | | |
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.
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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Medina and Yarrow Point each filed their own petitions the following month.
On July 26, 1955. Medina voted to incorporate, while Yarrow Point didn't until 1959.
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was moved from Bellingham to Bellevue, in the Enatai neighborhood.
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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 - (Legh) Miller Freeman Sr., father of F. Kemper Freeman Sr, dies age 80.
[Sample of his memoir RE: Japanese fishers]
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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.
Seattle Times describes a “self-contained city in a country atmosphere”.
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In 1956 the City of Bellevue starts to buy many old farm properties for parks and other things.
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The first Bellevue park bond passed in 1956.
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.
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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In 1957 the Phantom Lake Elementary school opened.
A new Medina Elementary opened.
Highland Elementary opened at 14220 8th Street
Highland Junior High opened.
Factoria School closed/ used for special services.
Woodridge Elementary opened (officially dedicated in fall 1958)
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1958 Lake Hills Elementary opened.
Sunset Elementary opened.
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1959 Sammamish High School opened.
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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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In 1961 L. Joe Miller took the position of City Manager of Bellevue,
a place he had never visited prior to that point.
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. |
St. Louise Parish School opened in September, 1961,
with a student enrollment of 425 in grades one through six.
Enrollment increased by 125 students in the following two years
and expansion of facilities became essential.
An additional seven-classroom wing was completed for the fall of 1963.
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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). |  Yeizo Masunaga was 15 during World War II when he and his family were forced to leave the Phantom Lake cabin they leased for $500 a year and were sent to Camp Tulelake and Minidoka for internment after Pinedale Assembly Center. http://www.nvcfmemorialwall.org/profile/view/3017 After the war, Yeizo moved around the country, |eventually returning to settle in Seattle in the early 1950s and married Marie Kazuko Sakata in 1962. | 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.
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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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1965 - The Old Bellevue Main Street School is condemned and torn down;
The Bellevue Fire Department formed.
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In 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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Until 1966, after returning from incarceration camps,
the Matsuoka family became the new tenants in the Thode / Masunaga cabin at Phantom Lake.
John (Yoshio ) and his wife, Teru, raised their three daughters and son in the home while farming the surrounding land until 1966, when he went to work for the U.S. Postal Service.
Matsuoka grew red potatoes, celery, strawberries and Romaine lettuce.
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In March of 1967, Isaac Lind Bechtel Jr., son of Isaac Kinsey Bechtel and Isabelle Bechtel, died and was buried in Kirkland, Washington. Isaac Jr. was born October 13th 1881 in Waterloo Township, Waterloo Region, Ontario. Also in 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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In 1968, the Hagiwara family moved to Bellevue with their youngest children,
Juli and Rob, who grew up in the Robinswood area.
Patrick Kazuo Hagiwara was born and raised in Ketchikan Alaska,
the second child of bakery owners, Frank and Shima Hagiwara.
When he graduated Ketchikan High School in 1936,
he joined the 297th battalion of the Alaska National Guard.
During those years, Pat was military personnel and informal intermediary between incarcerated Japanese immigrants before internments began, and then their families in being relocated to inland concentration camps.
Pat was an early advocate for culturally respectful treatment and mitigated considerable fear within the Ketchikan and Southeast Alaska Japanese community. This part of Pat’s story is an oral history documented at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. During World War II, Pat was a much-decorated veteran. He served as a staff sergeant with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. Campaigns included Napples-Foggia, Southern France (Gliders), Champaign, Gothic Line, Bruyers/Buffontaine, and Lost Battalion.
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In February of 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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Nettie and Ray Fisher lived on the Duey farm and raised Hereford cattle until 1968.
Over the years, much of the surrounding area had been sold to developers
who began building single family homes in the early 60’s.
The farmland was soon hemmed in by a growing new neighborhood
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| The Duey’s second barn after the 1933 fire. |
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” In 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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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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1970: Annexations bump population to 61,196,
making Bellevue WA state’s fourth-largest city.
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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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in the Washington State House of Representatives
as a Republican representing the 48th district.
After serving for three years, he resigned from the seat to focus on his business.
grandson of Miller Freeman Sr.
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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;
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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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