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JAPAN TOWN, MUKILTEO
PHOTO GALLERY
Japanese Heritage Marker - Mukilteo
The monument is located at Mukilteo's Heritage
Park, 1126 5th Street. Mr. Odoi was
instrumental
in establishing this monument.
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The inscription on the plaque reads:
“Peace—Happiness
Historic Mukilteo:
Model of Racial Harmony
Commemorating: The hospitality of early
Mukilteo residents to families of Japanese workers at Crown Lumber
Co.
The Japanese lived near this marker in
an area known as Japanese Gulch from 1903 until the 1930s, when the
sawmill closed during the Great Depression.
The origami crane is a symbol of peace
and happiness.
This memorial honors the warm friendship of Japanese
American children with their Mukilteo peers.
Erected on May 30, 2000 by
Mukilteo Historical Society
City of Mukilteo
Mukilteo Japanese Americans”
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Japanese Gulch, 1920s
Computer graphic created by Mas Odoi.
He says: “When we moved away, we never found a place as nice to
live” (quoted in Margaret RIDDLE’s 2007 essay on Mukilteo History
at www.historylink.org, essay #8442).
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Japanese Gulch in 2008
The creek (above) ran
through the center of town and had deep trout pools. The aerial
photo (from Google, right) shows the bridge over the railroad spur
leading
from the BNSF tracks to the Boeing plant.
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MINIDOKA RELOCATION CENTER
Located on 33,500 acres of Federal
Reclamation Project land in Jerome County, Idaho, in the remote high
desert north of the Snake River, the Minidoka Relocation Center was
in operation from 1942 to 1945. Its mostly urban population was
drawn primarily from King and Pierce Counties, WA, and from the
Portland area; it peaked at over 9,000 on March 1, 1943. A total of
13, 078 detainees were processed through this camp. They lived in
barracks and shared communal facilities, attended and taught school,
and engaged in light manufacturing, agriculture, and livestock
production in order to provide food and clothing for the camp. About
eight percent of eligible male citizens were inducted directly into
the U.S. Military.
Now in Minidoka County, Idaho, the
former internment camp was established as a National Monument in
2001, and, as one of the newest units of the National Park Service,
it does not have any visitor facilities or services available.
Currently, visitors see the remains of the entry guard station,
waiting room, and rock garden and can visit the Relocation Center
Display at the Jerome County Museum in nearby Jerome and the restored
barracks building at the Idaho Farm and Ranch Museum southeast of
town.
Honor Roll of Japanese-American
Servicemen from Minidoka.
The young woman in uniform is
unidentified.
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Odoi Family Portrait: the parents
are George Teichi Odoi and Chikaye (née Kobayashi) Odoi. The
twin sons are Hiroshi (on the left) and Masaru “Mas” Odoi. The
daughter is Miriam Odoi, now Miriam Okamura. The parents sailed as
newlyweds from Japan to Puget Sound in 1903; Mas and Hiroshi were
born in 1921 in Japanese Gulch.
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For more information on the life of the
Japanese in Mukilteo see the essays by Margaret RIDDLE, nos. 8442 and
8446 at www.historylink.org., as well as the sources cited by
Margaret at the end of the essays.
The text and photos by Mas Odoi have
been reprinted in The Sounder by permission of Mas Odoi, and
Bev Schreiber and John Petroff of the Mukilteo Historical Society,
where they may be found on the MHS website:
mukilteohistorical.org/pdf/japanese_gulch.pdf
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