<Begin Segment 17>

JM: Kinda unbelievable, but these areas that have a real nice housing was all cleared by the Japanese, by hand labor, horse, dynamite, and everything. That's, those kinds of things were available to us at that time. But in Bellevue, why, I don't know what they call it now, but Downey Hill is a nice housing area, that is cleared by Japanese up there, where Tosh Ito was living, was cleared by Japanese, but it's a fancy golf course now. And the Midlake row, that was all farmed, cleared and farmed by Japanese, and now I think the Northwest headquarters of Safeway is there. Is that right?

TI: Yes, it's Safeway's distribution center for the West, yeah.

JM: Yeah, Northwest distribution center.

TI: And, I mean, that spawned off Coca-Cola across the street from them now, too. They have their big distribution center, and then a lot of other, smaller companies along the side.

JM: So all this happened after the, well, just before the war, I guess, or was it after? It's after the war.

TI: No, Safeway bought, in the year 1953 I believe it was, that Safeway bought all those farmers out.

JM: That's right.

TI: And then Coca-Cola came in a few years after that.

AI: It sounds like in the early days, before the war, the Japanese were really responsible for clearing the way for all this later development.

JM: It wasn't recognized until real late what the contribution that the Japanese have made for Bellevue. They're just now starting to recognize all the things that they've done.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.