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In this 1937 photograph we see the east side of Rainier Avenue’s 4800 block, with the ornate Ark Lodge building occupying center stage. The Columbia Garage is to the left, where the Washington Federal Bank stands today, and the Rainier Valley Transfer Company, a furniture moving operation, is to the right of the Ark Lodge. Streetcar tracks go up the center of Rainier in the photo, but the streetcar had ceased operation on January 1st, and the tracks would soon be torn up and paved over to make the road safer for buses and cars. The Ark Lodge Masonic Temple is part of a long history of fraternal organizations in Columbia City. Fraternal groups such as the Masons were an important part of the social fabric in many American towns in the early 20th century: the 1919 Polk Directory lists 38 different fraternal organizations in Seattle, with over 200 individual chapters. The groups varied widely in their membership and purpose. The Freemasons famously included many of the nation’s political leaders, going back to George Washington and Benjamin Franklin; local chapters often included prominent community members and businessmen. The Modern Woodmen of America (who also had a chapter in Columbia) offered mutual aid to working people, and eventually evolved into a life insurance company. Women’s groups reinforced social ties – and stratifications – while their members did charity work in the community. The first fraternal organization we know of in Columbia was the Knights of Pythias, who built an elegant two-story building at 4863 Rainier Avenue in 1892. (The top half burned down in 1941, but the first floor is still there, home to the new Columbia City Bakery and Pet Elegance.) In 1898 the town’s attorney, H.H.A Hastings, built a building on Ferdinand Street known as Fraternity Hall, where various community groups met. (BikeWorks is at that site now.) In 1903, Ark Lodge #126 of the Free and Accepted Masons held its first meeting at Fraternity Hall, which was known from then on as the First Masonic Temple. The organization grew steadily. In 1905 an affiliated women’s group, the Ark Chapter #86 of the Order of the Eastern Star, was started in Columbia. In 1921 the Masons built the beautiful Ark Lodge building pictured here. It was designed by architect J. L. McCauley, who lived in the neighborhood and designed many of the buildings in the area. The Masons met on the upper floor, and the Heater Glove factory moved in downstairs. Freeman Heater, also a local resident, started the Heater Glove company in 1918. The factory began with one sewing machine at 4914 Rainier Avenue, in the alley behind the movie theater. The company grew quickly and eventually produced a complete line of leather gloves and helmets. Charles Lindbergh wore a Heater helmet on his trip across the Atlantic in 1927 – it is now in the Smithsonian, we hear. The company also made boxing gloves for Jack Dempsey, a personal friend of Freeman’s. In addition to providing world-famous heroes with the tools of their trades, the Heater factory was a great supplier of material for local schoolboys. Buzz Anderson, a student at Columbia School in the 1930s, remembers rummaging through the Heater garbage cans, looking for leather scraps big enough to make into slingshot pockets. After World War Two, the Heater Glove factory moved a mile north, and for the next fifty years the Ark Lodge building served primarily as a meeting hall for Masonic groups and others. The City Directories in the 1960s list Ark Lodge #126 of the Free and Accepted Masons; their sister group, the Order of the Eastern Star; and a half-dozen other fraternal organizations in the building, including the Order of De-Molay, the Order of Rainbow Girls, and Job’s Daughters. The first floor store-front space was occupied by several businesses over the years, including Roy Bailey’s insurance office and H. & R. Block tax services. Victorious Life Christian Center held services in the building in 2000. In 2003 the Masons finally sold the building – the small group continues to meet in Tukwila every week – and Paul Doyle transformed the Mason’s upstairs meeting rooms into our neighborhood moviehouse, the Columbia City Cinema. One final note: you may notice that the 1937 photograph was shot from high above the street: the photographer was standing on top of a hill that no longer exists. The current site of the Bank of America, Columbia Plaza, the Farmers Market, and the Hasegawa Professional Building was once a wooded knoll with several houses on it. The hill was razed in the 1950s when the bank was built.

These pictures arrived in our office last week, sent by Mr. Vern Farrow. They may not seem all that spectacular at first glance, but they were greeted with great fanfare. The Farrow family lived at 5120 S. Juneau St., just up the hill from Seward Park, for more than fifty years. The house faces a knoll to the south known then – unfortunately – as “Chink Hill.” (This racial slur may refer to Chinese laborers brought to the area to work on nearby railroads, who may have had a camp on the hill at one time. A very slightly less offensive etymology holds that the hill was populated by Chinese pheasants, which Mr. Farrow hunted on occasion. Either way, the name certainly says something about the racial climate of the early 20th century.) Back to the photographs: we have heard for years that there was an anti-aircraft gun on the hill during the Second World War. According to historylink.org, the Army installed batteries of 3-inch guns in several locations around Seattle in January of 1942, just a month after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. These guns were to protect Seattle and its military production from enemy planes that might venture across the Pacific on aircraft carriers. The gun on the hill south of Juneau Street may have been part of this operation. After searching various photo collections, and trying in vain to track down Army records, we had pretty much given up on finding a photograph of the gun on “Chink Hill.” But then came the surprise package from Mr. Farrow. Here we see a pile of ammunition partially covered with a tarp, next to one of the tents used by the soldiers camped at the base of the hill. In the upper left corner of the photograph is the gun itself. The second photograph documents another feature of homefront life that we hear about often. This view looking west over the Farrows’ house shows the sky above the Boeing plant dotted with twenty barrage balloons. These blimp-like craft hung over many military production sites, including the Boeing plant and the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard at Bremerton. Cables tied from the balloon to the ground kept enemy planes from flying over the target. Jim Lough, who grew up on Empire Way (now M.L. King Way) in the 1940s, remembers a barrage balloon company stationed near his house; the Loughs invited the men in the company over for dinner on occasion. Lough explains, “Boeing Field was surrounded by these little companies that were [each] in charge of one barrage balloon.” When all the balloons were in the air with their cables, “It would be like netting, almost.” The Farrow photograph confirms this description: it’s hard to imagine flying a plane through this obstacle course. Anti-aircraft guns, barrage balloons – these and other homefront defenses illustrate the terrible fear of Japanese attack along the West Coast in the 1940s. Kids like Vern Farrow and Jim Lough grew up in the shadow of the war. They knew that at any moment the ammunition stockpiled across the street from their house might be needed to shoot down enemy bombers, that their friends at the barrage balloon company were ever on the alert. Students at Whitworth knelt in the coatroom with their jackets over their heads during air raid drills. Japanese American schoolmates were sent away to internment camps – an injustice fueled by the same fear of attack. Of course, no Japanese plane ever made it to Seattle to be shot down by anti-aircraft guns or foiled by barrage balloons. Likewise, the smokescreen over the shipyard proved to be unnecessary. So were Boeing’s attempts to disguise its hangars as residential neighborhoods by building fake houses and trees on top of them. But the threat and the fear were both very real. The hill south of the Farrows’ house is now covered with handsome post-war homes with well-manicured gardens and enviable views. There are no traces of the anti-aircraft gun or the pile of ammunition, and nobody calls it “Chink Hill” anymore. But perhaps as the neighbors gather there on the 4th of July to watch the official and unofficial fireworks displays all over the city, they’ll take a moment to remember the Chinese laborers that may have camped there, the barrage balloons that once filled the sky to the west, and the anti-aircraft gun that sat right behind them, ready for action, all those years ago.

We are grateful to a student researcher, L.S., for bringing the Dixon family to our attention. We have gleaned much from archival documents, census records, newspapers, and local books. We present here a story about the Dixon family who were among the first Black property owners and residents in Rainier Valle y. Roscoe Dixon is credited with being the first Black business owner in Astoria, Oregon. One hundred years later his youngest daughter, Theresa Dixon Flowers, donated Dixon and Flowers family photos to the Oregon Historical Society in 1984. The Biographical Notes included with the collection reference his birth in Virginia in the 1840s. After time in Portland and Astoria, Oregon; Victoria, B.C.; Dyea, Alaska and additional unknown elsewhere in between, the Roscoe Dixon family lived in the Brighton Beach neighborhood as early as 1908. Roscoe Dixon and his younger brother Robert’s birthplace was Richmond, Virginia. By 1850 they, with their mother Agnes and George Lee, had escaped slavery there via the Underground Railroad to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where whaling ships fed the economy. Roscoe was seven and Robert was four years old. The Fugitive Slave Act, recently passed by the U.S Congress, threatened runaways with arrest and return to their enslavers in the South and the family was subject to this Act. Agnes Lee was still in residence in New Bedford when she wrote her last will and testament in 1885, though she had by then lost George to death. At some point in time, Robert and Roscoe Dixon had both headed west. Roscoe worked in Portland, Oregon, as a “col., [colored] cook” (Polk’s Portland, Oregon, City Directory, 1874) and “oysterman” at the Gem Saloon at First and Stark. Roscoe soon established an oyster saloon in Astoria, where he offered “Fancy Roasts and Fried Oysters” for 35 cents and Boston Crystal Ice Cream. In 1880, Roscoe Dixon married Theresa Brown, a young woman originally from Macon, Georgia. The 1870 U.S. Census has 12-year old Theresa Brown as part of the household of a cooper (barrel maker) and his wife, in their 30s and white, living about 20 miles east of Astoria on the Columbia River. The Biographical Notes mention a sea captain that brought Theresa to Astoria around Cape Horn. She received training as a nurse in the area and provided private duty care and midwifery services into the 1920s. Her daughter Theresa was interviewed by Seattle historian Esther Hall Mumford in August 1979, when she recalled of her mother, “She worked for many years. I know times when she wouldn’t get home to stay for a year. She’d go from one case to another.” (Seattle’s Black Victorians 1852-1901, p. 130). Roscoe’s brother, Robert Dixon had first arrived in Seattle in 1865; he gave cuts and shaves downtown on Columbia Street for nearly 50 years. In 1883 Robert, then in his 40s, married Rebecca Grose, daughter of well-known and successful Black entrepreneurs William and Sarah Grose. William Grose had purchased some 12 acres of land from Henry Yesler at East Madison and became the first Black property owner in the area. Over the years parcels were sold to other Black families ready to build their homes. This area formed the north end of today’s Central District. Back in Astoria, Roscoe Dixon lost his oyster house business in about 1885. Daughter Theresa later attributed the failure to the railroad collapse—the transcontinental railroad had fallen short of reaching Astoria by a mere 58 miles. The town’s big dreams of expanding into a major port town to rival Portland had to be put on hold. The Dixon family was growing and the children’s birthplaces trace their travels. Roscoe and Theresa’s son Chester Ingersoll Dixon was born in Astoria in November of 1882. First daughter, Christine Mabel, was born in Victoria, B.C. in November of 1885 and Theresa Virginia, in Seattle in December of 1894. The Black population of Seattle’s four wards in 1890 was 286 of the nearly 43,000 total residents in the city (U.S. Census). Roscoe found work as janitor, conductor, grocer, waiter, cook, and steward that decade. In October of 1891, he was considered for a position as city hall janitor, but political concerns involving race were raised and the motion for the appointment failed (The Seattle Post-Intelligencer). This is the first mention of Roscoe Dixon in Seattle newspapers. He did eventually work for Seattle City Hall. Other opportunities presented themselves. Robert Dixon and his brother-in-law George Grose became investors in the Seattle Klondike Grubstake and Trading Company in 1897. In a letter published in The Seattle Republican in June of 1898, the column “Alaskaites Write” mentions Roscoe Dixon’s plans to stay in Dyea for the summer and, if times got better, to move his family up. How this venture ultimately fared as the gold rush in Dyea soon fizzled is unknown. Since arriving in Seattle, the Dixons had lived on 10th and 17th Avenues, on Washington Street, and various other locations. Mrs. Theresa Dixon signed the real estate contract for two lots in the Palace Garden replat of Tract 32 of Kelsey’s Brighton Beach Acre Tracts with a purchase price of $1,600 to be paid in $20 monthly increments in 1908. By the time Roscoe and Theresa Dixon settled in their Rainier Valley home with their daughters, their son Chester had been in the U.S. Navy for 11 years. As a teenager in Seattle, he had enlisted as apprentice boy and eventually served 37 years, a veteran of three wars. In 1920 Mr. Dixon was noted to be the only Black Chief torpedo man with permanent appointment (The Northwest Enterprise, 4/25/1945). During an unusually cold and snowy January of 1916, Roscoe Dixon succumbed to heart disease at 72 years of age. Mrs. Dixon remained in the family home with daughter, Theresa, who was working as a nurse. After Mrs. Dixon’s death in 1927, Theresa Dixon remained living on 43rd Avenue South until about 1938, when she left for California to work at the Los Angeles County Tuberculosis Hospital. Sister Mabel returned to the family home until the 1940s while working at the King County Tuberculosis Hospital. Early Black residents of the Pacific Northwest, the Dixons called Rainier Valley “home” for some 30 years. This family contributed to the health and well-being of Seattle residents from their arrival just prior to the financial panic of 1893 up until the Second World War with Chester’s military service and the women’s work in public and private health.

This year’s return to the annual RVHS Founder’s Dinner and Auction was one of the best! We gathered on October 14th to honor founder Buzz Anderson’s legacy and celebrate RVHS 2023 History Makers Kubota Garden Foundation and community leader Herb Tsuchiya. The event was a fantastic success with ukulele musicians starting off the social hour, followed by an Asian themed menu, heart-warming award presentations, and a fun live auction with Mary Charles’ debut as auctioneer. Critical funds were raised for our educational programs and archives care from the generous donations in the room. We extend our heartfelt gratitude to those who attended the dinner and contributed to an enjoyable time for all. Herb Tsuchiya - History Maker 2023 Herb Tsuchiya’s Japanese parents emigrated from Hiroshima prefecture in 1917. The Tsuchiya family were rice farmers in Montana where his father worked as a railroad laborer. Herb was born at Harborview Hospital in Seattle in 1932, the youngest of seven, and was named for U. S. President Herbert Hoover. His mother, Momoyo, was working as a waitress for a Japanese restaurant when his father, Nobuichi, left the family for Japan just as Executive Order 9066 forcing the relocation of West Coast Japanese inland came into effect and the family had to assemble with their two suitcases each for the bus caravans to Puyallup. After release from the 3.5 year incarceration, Momoyo Tsuchiya and her family were first housed at the Seattle Japanese Baptist Church and then in public housing at Stadium Homes on Empire Way, and finally settled in at Rainier Vista on Columbian Way which felt “luxurious.” Herb Tsuchiya went on to be honored with numerous professional and community awards based on his work with underserved populations including seniors, immigrants and low-income children. When Herb co-founded Kin-On Health Care in 1985, it was the first nursing home in the nation serving non-English speaking elderly. He worked for King County Public Health at both Rainier Park Medical Clinic and Columbia Health Center after he owned and managed the Genesee Street Pharmacy for his profession. In the 1990s Herb joined a community theater group for a production of “Breaking the Silence” as a way to share the Japanese experience of incarceration in the 1940s. Herb commented, “the whole Japanese-American community did not talk about the camps and yet it’s what totally defines all of us. We all had that common thread of experience.” Herb Tsuchiya passed away on August 21, 2023. His celebration of life was held on November 25, 2023. Herb’s three rules of life, “Be Kind, Be Kind, Be Kind” steered his life of caring for, giving to, helping, and serving others. His legacy of service will be remembered. Kubota Garden Foundation - History Makers 2023 Kubota Garden Foundation, (KGF) was established in 1989 to support, enhance, and perpetuate Kubota Garden within the spirit and vision of Fujitaro Kubota and his son Tom Kubota. KGF has led or partnered with others on over 10 construction projects including the Terrace Overlook, the Ishigaki drystack stone wall, the Ornamental Wall, the Entry Gate, and made ADA accessibility improvements; KGF has partnered with Seattle Parks & Recreation on programming and events at Kubota Garden in Rainier Beach making lasting contributions to Southeast Seattle and beyond. History of Kubota Garden Foundation Fujitaro Kubota was interested in the garden becoming a public space. When he passed away in 1973, the family approached the City of Seattle to discuss their purchase of the garden, but the City declined. In the late 1980s, when developers were eager to purchase the 20-acre property and build condominiums, community members advocated for the City of Seattle to purchase the garden. Councilwoman Jeanette Williams found the necessary funds to make the purchase in 1987. Several of those community members formed Kubota Garden Foundation in 1989 to continue a partnership with the City and assure the preservation of the entire garden as envisioned by the Kubota family.

The Atlantic Street Center, a youth-focused social service agency, is celebrating a hundred years of serving the citizens of the Rainier Valley. Snapshots tell the story of growth and change with the times. All photos are used with the permission of the Atlantic Street Center unless otherwise credited. Atlantic Street Center began life in 1910 as the Deaconess Settlement House at 1519 Rainier Avenue South. The methodist Deaconesses who founded the charity wished to serve the unmet needs of the many Italian immigrant families in "Garlic Gulch" (North Rainier). The settlement house idea - a place for immigrants to meet, learn, and sometimes even live as they became accustomed to their new lives - was a common feature of the Progressive Era in many cities. The most famous settlement house was Jane Addam's Hull House in Chicago. The Atlantic Street Center owes its founding to a group of Methodist Deaconesses, lay women who dedicated themselves to full-time volunteer work among the poor. These women wear the traditional garb of blue dress, white neck ruffle and simple bonnet. They received professional training and did not marry. Deaconesses today, while fewer in number, are free to marry and dress as they wish. Early Programs In the early decades, Deaconess Settlement offered programs for all ages, including literacy and nutrition classes for adults, social programs, religious programs, and kindergarten and baby programs. Visiting nurse services was a major focus. Children perform a "health play." The sashes list positive attributes, such as "Conscience," "Good Health," Good Temper." Religious Ties Deaconess Settlement was affiliated with the United Methodist Church. In the early years, religion was very much a part of the services offered, which included a Sunday School and evening preaching services. Today Atlantic Street Center is completely non-sectarian, but values a close relationship with the United Methodist Church. Sunday School children perform a nativity play. The Settlement House Grows Up In 1927, Deaconess Settlement built a new home for its expanding services. An Italianate-style brick building was constructed on South Atlantic Street. This building still serves as administrative offices for Atlantic Street Center. Over time, many settlement houses have morphed into the family and neighborhood centers we know today. The Atlantic Street Center operates two family centers, at New Holly and in Rainier Beach, in addition to its offices and programs on Atlantic Street at the head of the valley. Something for Everybody Deaconess Settlement became the Atlantic Street Center during the 1950s, a name change that reflected a more professional, and less religious, approach to charity work. Gradually, trained social workers took over management of the agency, which continued to provide a variety of counseling, school-based, and recreational programs. A sample schedule from 1955 lists the following activities offered by or at the Atlantic Street Center: Modern Dance, Adult Sewing, Playschool, Summer Day Camp, Boy Scouts, Campfire Girls, Teenage Nights, Center Boys and Girls Chorus. Refocusing Beginning in the '60s, Atlantic Street Center realized it could no longer afford to be all things to all people. The agency refocused its efforts on troubled youth, working with the schools and with federal grants focused on delinquency prevention. Communities of color now made up much of the Rainier Valley and the agency began advocating for the needs of these families. Today the Atlantic Street Center continues its focus on youth and families, serving over 3,000 children from its North Rainier headquarters and family centers at New Holly and Rainier Beach.

This 1908 photo of Columbia City was taken looking north along 37th Avenue from Dawson Street at the foot of Hitt’s Hill. It is a primitive scene: a muddy track veers around a raw stump and an oddly listing tree. Crooked planked sidewalks wind along in front of the wooden houses. The original Columbia School building, with its distinctive bell tower, is visible on the left. The only sign of modernity is the line of utility poles marching down the hill. When this photo was taken, Columbia City, founded in 1891, had just been annexed to the City of Seattle. Some 300 people lived in the little town, which was connected to Seattle by a streetcar that ran down what is now Rainier Avenue. Fast forward to 2004: the hill has been graded, the streets are paved, and the utility poles have been moved to the west side of 37th Avenue. The old Columbia School was torn down in 1922 after a one-storey school was built behind it. The new school’s slender white smokestack is visible on the far left. On the right, a block of houses has been replaced with a large flat-roofed building. This building was built in 1979 as an expansion of the manufacturing plant that has been in operation in Columbia City for nearly 50 years. The company began in 1955 as a gasket and machine shop called Fabricators, Inc. in the old streetcar barn at Rainier and Hudson. (The streetcars had quit operating in 1937.) It became Fluorocarbon, Inc. in 1973, then changed its name to Furon around 1995. The company was bought by Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics in October, 1999. Today the plant employs 95 people and provides molded plastic and foam products to the aviation, medical, and computer industries. Only one feature remains the same in this altered landscape: the small peaked-roof house just beyond the plastics plant, visible in the 1908 photo behind the second utility pole. In the early 1900s, the house belonged to the Womach family, who owned a fuel business nearby. Even this building has changed: in 2002 it was lifted off its foundation and a lower storey was built beneath it. Teng Lauk, a Sudanese immigrant, has opened the Maar Store on the new ground floor of the building. Double Exposures: the Rainier Valley Rephotography Project The Rainier Valley Historical Society, worked with local photographer Kerry Zimmerman, in selecting historical photographs from its collection and recaptured those images as closely as possible in the Rainier Valley of today. We then researched both the changes and the remnants of the past that are revealed in the photographs, and presented the images to the public. Double Exposures is supported by King County 4Culture and the Rainier Rotary Foundation.

Abstract: Mr.Coleman discusses buying a house and growing up in Rainier Valley, working in an Alaskan cannery and leisure time activities there, work in Bremerton shipyard during WWI, a ship accident at Cake Rock, Puget Sound, his brief stay in the Army during WWII, treatment of Japanese during the war, employment of women during both World Wars, and observations on the Siwash people. NOTE: We acknowledge that the term “siwash” is a derogatory term used against the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest. However, we cannot edit or ignore the use of this term as to erase it would be as bad as not acknowledging the hurtful legacy of the word.

The discussion will touch on issues of police brutality and accountability, the current swell of activism and street protests, everyday micro-aggressions, and casual racism told through the personal stories of the panelists. After the panel discussion, there will be a community discussion and an opportunity to speak. Speakers: Delbert Richardson, Educator, Historian Maury Diakite, Artist Patty Wells, Business Owner Tony Benton, Radio Station Manager Photo: The Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP), June 2020.

Growing up the eldest of ten children with a single mother, Ruby Chow learned the power of ordinary people helping each other out. Inspired by Madame Chiang Kai-Shek's eloquent speeches on behalf of her people, Chow made a promise that "if she was ever in a position to help others, she would." This August 19, 1987 file photo shows Ruby Chow, the matriarch of Seattle's large Chinese-American community. Family members said the restaurateur and politician died Wednesday, June 4, 2008, at her Seattle home of heart failure. She was 87. The Chow's restaurant was a gathering place for Seattle's movers and shakers. Roby Chow became a leader within the Chinese community, despite traditions that kept women in the background. She also worked to "demystify the Chinese community an culture" in the white community. Ruby Chow eventually turned her talents to public office, serving as the first Asian American on the King County Council from 1973 to 1985. Her accomplishments included establishing bilingual education in public schools.

When our Food Stories cookbook was being written we compiled not just recipes but recorded oral histories from people and these oral histories are recorded. So today, we are focusing on Dora Abney, her red velvet cake recipe, and what Juneteenth meant to her. You may be asking yourself, what is Juneteenth? Juneteenth is the celebration and commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States. President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, in the middle of the Civil War. But the proclamation didn’t reach many slaves until much later. Union soldiers often delivered the news as they moved through the South.  It wasn’t until June 19, 1865, two months after the Civil War ended, that slaves in Texas learned that they were free. Formerly enslaved people  and their descendants continued to celebrate the anniversary of their freedom every year on June 19th, which came to be known as “Juneteenth.” As African Americans migrated to other parts of the country, they took the holiday with them. Juneteenth was first celebrated in Seattle in 1890. “Red foods represented the blood that was shed during slavery – red pop, red velvet cake. Watermelon. And chicken barbecue, barbecued ribs. The blood was really flowing! Dora Abney in 2003 discussing why Red food is served at Juneteenth celebrations, Rainier Valley Food Stories Cookbook Below is an excerpt of Dora Abney’s oral history. This oral history was conducted in 2003 for Rainier Valley Historical Society’s Food Stories Cookbook. Dora Abney in 2003 was the Director of Twinks Early Childhood Education Center and Preschool in Columbia City. She is originally from Marshall, Texas, where her family celebrated Juneteenth. She moved to Seattle in the early 1960s and has lived in the Rainier Valley for more than 30 years. Here she shares her memories of Juneteenth and explains the importance of the holiday for African Americans -- and others – today. Everything was fresh because in June it’s at the end of the harvest for the South. So we would have corn on the cob – everything was fresh, fresh everything – fresh chicken out of the yard, fresh chicken off the farm, barbecue ribs. What the women made was cake and pie. And the rest of it the mens did. They got a pig in the ground, cook it all night. Then they’d put on a fire and have the ribs and stuff be on bars hanging over the fire, not like what they do now, with a grill. They just hang it. It would cook, they’d roll it over. You don’t hardly see it anymore. The men would do the whole work!” What I can remember about Juneteenth is mostly my dad. I just remember how he used to say, “Juneteenth, that’s a big thing for us,” and by being born in the South, I kinda understood what he was saying. I saw what was going on, but didn’t really understand why. Some people say it’s like the Fourth of July, but this particular day, it was more exciting for my father. Now I recognize why, because that was the day they considered they got their freedom. It was his dad’s dad’s dad – it was passed down. They understood what it meant, and why that day was so meaningful. I got the idea that it was for freedom, but the history behind it was really not told, because it’s a sad situation, what had really happened. But he would always go out and shop like it was Christmas, and he would buy food, picnic stuff.  Whether it fell on a Sunday or Monday, it was a holiday to us. Everybody in the neighborhood, everybody in the city took off. The whole city was shut down. And we would picnic away. It was hot. My father, he would always sing, and he would play ball, and he was just excited. All the mens, they played ball. We packed up and we went to the baseball field. We would just celebrate. The men and the women would just dance. The kids would look, ‘cause you know, we didn’t know. As I got older it was more explained to me. So now, I’m trying to feed that little knowledge that I know to the other children – not only just black, everyone – to understand that – it’s freedom. When we came to Washington State it kind of faded out of the family, people didn’t celebrate it. They said, “What do you mean, Juneteenth? We don’t celebrate that.” So I figured I’d let it slide. Then about four years ago, when I started at the daycare center, I brought it up again. I said, “We need to celebrate Juneteenth. The kids don’t know what it’s about.” So in 2000 we had a Juneteenth celebration at Twinks, where we blocked off the street, we sold barbecue, and the kids played. It was exciting. I said “Juneteenth,” and then to me, everybody blossomed. All of a sudden everybody did know about it: “Yeah, I heard about that, what is it about?” So we started digging up information so we could put it out, so people understand what it is. During her oral history, Dora Abney gave us her recipe for red velvet cake. RED VELVET CAKE with Cream Cheese Frosting Cake: ½ cup shortening 3 Tbs. cocoa 1 ½ cups sugar 1 cup buttermilk 2 ½ cups sifted cake flour 1 tsp. salt 2 eggs 1 Tbs. vinegar 1 tsp. vanilla 1 tsp. baking soda 1 tsp. butter flavoring 1 ½ oz bottle of red color Cream shortening and sugar. Beat in eggs, vanilla, and butter flavor. Make a paste of cocoa and food coloring and add it to the first mixture. Alternately add flour and buttermilk. Mix baking soda and vinegar in a small bowl; add to batter. Bake in three 9” or 10” pans for 20-25 minutes at 350o. Let cool completely before frosting. Frosting: 6 oz. cream cheese, softened 1 tsp. vanilla 6 Tbs. butter, softened 2 cups sifted powdered sugar Blend all ingredients until smooth. Serving Suggestions for Red Velvet Cake While the cake is perfectly delicious on its own (I personally think that this is the best Red Velvet I've ever tasted) I ended up having to make mine into red velvet cake truffles by dipping them into chocolate. Add a lollipop stick and you have some delicious cake pops.

During Columbia City’s early years, Washington struggled with the prohibition issue. Temperance advocates had begun their work back in the 1850s, when Washington was still a Territory. At that time, hard-line prohibitionists were closely aligned with other “radical” causes such as the abolition of slavery and women’s suffrage. Over the next half-century, the prohibition movement waxed and waned, becoming a complicated tangle of often contradictory strands including anti-immigrant sentiment, populist revolt, religious fervor, economic analysis, and an appeal to “respectable” middle-class values. While they weren’t fanatic anti-alcohol crusaders, Columbia’s founders definitely wanted a quiet, middle-class town for their children to grow up in, and their liquor policy reflected this goal. When Columbia incorporated in 1892, state law allowed local regulation of alcohol, though not prohibition, and one of the town Council’s first acts was “an ordinance fixing the amount to be paid for license to sell malt and spirituous liquors, wine, ale, etc., and providing the manner in which the same shall be issued.” The ordinance decreed that an application for a liquor license must include a $1000 bond and $500 in cash. This sounds like a lot of money in a town where entire lots went for $300, but it was a fairly standard license fee at the time, and such fees were often paid by brewers in return for an exclusive contract with a saloon. So the $500 fee alone would not have kept Columbia “dry.” An even greater hurdle was the requirement to submit a supporting petition “signed by a majority of the freeholders of the town.” Also, the establishment couldn’t be located within one block of a school or church – not an easy condition to meet in a town three blocks long, with a school on one side and a church on the other! Finally, the Council gave itself blanket discretion: “If upon consideration,” the ordinance goes on, “the Council shall deem it in the interest of the town to grant said petition and license, said license shall be issued…” but it “may be revoked or suspended at any time by the council for good cause, and the council shall be the sole judge as to the sufficiency of the cause...” Unsurprisingly, Columbia was able to boast in the 1899 City Directory that it had “Good Schools, Pure Water, [and] No Saloons” – and the town seems to have stayed saloon-free at least until it joined Seattle in 1907. This does not mean nobody was drinking, however. Columbia’s population included many German and Irish immigrants who – according to historians, not just stereotypes – often continued their traditional beer consumption at home. Other residents may well have enjoyed (perfectly legal) alcoholic beverages at home too. We may never know for sure just how much alcohol was consumed – legally or not – in those early days. We can speculate, however. One avenue for speculation involves a petition presented to the Town Council on May 1st, 1905: “We, the undersigned Mothers and Women residing in Columbia, hereby petition your Honorable Body to regulate the conduct and operation of the billiard and pool room operated on Rainier Avenue…” These 83 women wanted the pool room closed on Sundays and at 11 pm the rest of the week. The Council, at the urging of Councilman Hastings, directed the town attorney to draft an ordinance “regulating and controlling Billiard Halls and Pool Rooms. Also all places of lounging and loafing on Sundays.” Well, the loungers and loafers of Columbia City weren’t about to take this lying down. On May 18th the Council was presented with a petition signed by 90 residents of Columbia (all male, naturally) who “respectfully petition your Honorable Body not to pass an ORDINANCE as prayed for by a certain PETITION presented … at your last Meeting.” Councilmen Peirson and Raynor spoke in favor of this petition, and the Council promptly and quietly dropped the proposed ordinance. (Close inspection of the two petitions reveals that several of the women who signed the first petition were married to men who signed the second – one can only imagine their comments at the dinner table that night.) Again, we have no evidence of anyone selling or consuming spirituous beverages at the pool hall on Rainier – we are still firmly in the realm of speculation. The 1905 City Directory doesn’t list a pool room in Columbia, though there was a “pool hall & barber” in Hillman City. The pool – barber combo seems to have been a popular one back then – Lee Gardner and Menzo LaPorte owned such an establishment in Columbia from 1908 to 1923. It certainly sounds like a rather comfortable, decidedly masculine hang-out from which wives might well have had difficulty extracting their husbands of an evening – particularly if you imagine the lure of a drink or two. When Columbia was annexed to Seattle in 1907, it became part of a “wet” urban zone in an increasingly “dry” state – but this didn’t appear to have much of an effect on Columbia City. The prohibitionists continued to fight for a statewide liquor ban, gaining ground as they became more politically savvy. In 1914 Washingtonians approved a “dry” ballot resolution that took effect on January 1st, 1916. All over the city, liquor stores and saloons desperately sold out their inventory as the clocked ticked down, and in the wee hours of January 1st the police dutifully arrested a couple of Pioneer Square bar owners to mark the start of the dry era. Four years later the 18th Amendment was ratified, and Prohibition took effect nationwide. But Seattle’s “dry” years were anything but, and at least one Rainier Valley resident played a key role in that story. Tune in next month for more about bootlegging, “blind pigs” and the Rum King!

Thursday and Sunday was spaghetti day Rainier Valley’s Italian heritage goes back a hundred years or more. Back then, the Valley was largely forests and farms, with the streetcar running down the middle. Many of the area’s farmers were immigrants, and many of those immigrants were from Italy. In fact, the neighborhood around Atlantic Street was so heavily dominated by Italians that it was called “Garlic Gulch.” These Italian immigrants brought a rich culinary tradition to the Rainier Valley that can still be enjoyed today. The Borracchini family opened a bakery in the Italian neighborhood in 1922, and their son Remo, still operates it. Remo describes the neighborhood when he was a child: “Our church was Mt. Virgin church. We had several Italian grocery stores at Atlantic Street, Italian pharmacy, Italian barbershop. The residents were mainly east and west of Rainier Avenue going all the way up to Beacon Hill. As far south as – oh, a little south of McClellan Street. We had the ballpark. We had the Vacca Brothers farm. And we had the Italian language school here, at Atlantic Street.” Vincent LaSalle also grew up in Garlic Gulch. His family owned a grocery store and meat market on Atlantic Street. “On one side was the meat market. My uncle was a good butcher and they used to cut their own meat. They had this great big walk-in icebox. They had a sawdust floor. I remember in one corner of the icebox, they had a great big fifty-gallon barrel. And in that barrel was pickled pig feet. Oh, god! You never tasted anything like that. Everything used to taste so good!” Ralph Vacca, grandson of one of the original Vacca Brothers, says that in his family “Thursday and Sunday was spaghetti day. You could count on it. It may be mustaciolli one Thursday and it may be spaghettini on a Sunday. It may be bow ties and it may be something else. But always, always Thursday and Sunday, in our household. And I would venture to say that if you talked to some others, you’ll get a smile, if you say, ‘Thursday and Sunday was spaghetti day.’ It was always good. It certainly wasn’t Franco American in a can, that’s for damned sure.” Vincent Lasalle:  “Oh, when they used to make spaghetti and meatballs at my grandma’s place. My grandma would mix the meat -- a combination of pork meat and beef all chopped up, see -- and put garlic and different kinds of flavors in it. Salt and pepper. She’d mix it all up and then [her daughters] used to take it and roll it into little balls. You’d have a stack of meatballs this big and they’d put that in the tomato sauce. Oh god! I never tasted meatballs like that.”