<Begin Segment 7>

ET: When I took over the hotel that was about 1950 and Harbor Island, there was a lumber mill.

TH: In West Seattle there was, yes.

ET: Yeah. And a lot of young people without wives were in town, and they made up the bulk of our customer so we had lots of people who wanted rooms. We didn't have to go hunting for them. And Japanese as a whole tried to take care of the customer when they're sick, and help them out when they couldn't pay the rent. Like this Mrs. Kuriyama, she would back them all through the winter, and then when they go to Alaska, they would come back and pay her.

DG: Now, who is Mrs. Kuriyama?

ET: She ran what they call, the Snake House. It was about a block away from the county city building.

TH: She was on 5th Avenue between, I think... what is that street this side of Jefferson?

ET: It was Fir, maybe huh?

TH: It was Jefferson, around Jefferson, 5th and Jefferson, Kuriyama Rooms, that's right.

ET: Is that right? How about the Snake House, which was this side of James.

TH: Yeah, that was called the Kuriyama Rooms, they used to call it.

ET: Yeah, she was quite a... I used to call her the angel of skid row because we kick a lot of drunks out and the only place left is Mrs. Kuriyama's Snake House. You could see the name was fitting.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.