The Yama Project

In the 1880’s, the booming Port Blakely Mill on Bainbridge Island prompted the settlement of Japanese immigrants, founding the settlement of Nagaya. In the 1890’s, married workers and residents were able to bring their families from Japan, leading to the creation of Yama village. The community grew over the years to house approximately 300 residents. The bustling village was home to the Washington Hotel and Takayoshi’s Store, Tea Room, and Photo Studio. Yama was also home to a Buddhist Temple and a Baptist Church.  Monks from Seattle would visit the temple. The Yama children would also come together at the temple to learn Japanese language and culture. With the closure of the mill in the 1920’s, Yama was eventually abandoned. Some residents remained on Bainbridge Island, and others left to settle elsewhere. The village businesses and homes were dismantled, the site became overgrown, and there was little left to see of this once thriving community.

After initial surveys over the last 20 years revealed artifact preservation on the archaeological site, Olympic College worked with Bainbridge Island Historical Museum to create the Yama Project. Together the goal was to lead survey, mapping, and eventual partial excavation of the site.  The site was nominated for National Register of Historic Places in 2014 and officially placed on the Register in 2018.  The Olympic College Archaeology Field School was created in 2015. A partnership was formed with a number of community organizations to bring forth the story of Yama and its residents. As nearly a century of underbrush was cleared away starting in 2015, Yama was revealed. Though no standing buildings remain, evidence of the people’s daily lives began to emerge. Students who participate in the Olympic College Archaeology Field School will learn the principles of site survey, proper recording of provenience, artifact recovery, laboratory analysis, and cataloging. The Olympic College Archaeology Field School is a unique opportunity for students and community alike to learn about the rich local history of Japanese American culture.

The following is an abbreviated timeline of Yama and Nagaya village on Bainbridge Island, which existed from the 1880s-1920s.  If you visit the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Community’s website, you can learn more about the history of Japanese Americans on Bainbridge (not only about Yama), including WWII and post WWII. 

Yama and Nagaya Timeline:

1863-1864: William Renton establishes Port Blakely Mill.  The mill is built in 1863 and opens in spring 1864.

1868: Meiji Restoration begins in Japan.  (Edo period ends).

1880: The Hall Brothers Shipyard moves to Port Blakely.  (In 1902, it will move to Winslow).

1882: Chinese Exclusion Act.  Due to the expulsion of Chinese from the region, Japanese laborers were probably recruited to work in the mill.

1883: First Japanese (single men) arrive at Port Blakely and work at the mill.

1888: Port Blakely Mill burns down and is rebuilt within 5 months.  This new “double” mill is called the world’s largest.  Approximately 35 Japanese men are in Port Blakely according to census data.

1889: Washington becomes a state.

1890: Kihachi Hirakawa arrives in Port Blakely and lives in Nagaya, the bachelors’ quarters, Nagaya. He will be influential in helping start the Baptist Church in Yama.

1890: Masajiro Furuya arrives in Seattle. Furuya developed a labor brokerage relationship with the mill. Furuya’s merchandise salesmen visit Yama regularly. Furuya later establishes “Furuya Gardens” at Crystal Springs, 3 miles from Port Blakely.

1890-1892: The Konos, Hanijiro and Fuji, arrive in Yama. They settle south of Nagaya, on the hill, “Yama”. By 1900, they will open the Washington Hotel. They have 4 children, all born while they lived in Yama. Due to their influence, more families will come to Yama.  Gambling and other illicit activities that were occurring among the bachelors in Nagaya will stop.

1891: Secretary Yoshio Fujita visits Port Blakely. He represents the Japanese Consulate in San Francisco. At the time of his visit, there are approximately 80 Japanese workers at the mill.

1891: William Renton dies.  This same year his nephews, John and James Campbell, take over management of the mill.

1897: Kihachi Hirakawa travels to Japan, marries, and returns to Yama.

1898-1899: Tamegoro and Tamao Takayoshi arrive in Yama. They have 8 children, all born while they lived in Yama. They will run several businesses at Yama, including a store, tea garden, ice cream parlor, and photography studio. Many people on Bainbridge Island visit the businesses. The ice cream is very popular.

1900: Seinosuke Takayoshi (Tamegoro’s brother) arrives in Yama.

1900 (or near then): Torazo and Kuma Nakao arrive. They raise 8 children in Yama. Torazo works at the mill and was given the name “Slab Harry”. He and other men hauled wood to homes around the harbor. He acts as a liaison between the company and the Japanese community.

1900: Estimates ae that Yama and Nagaya had over 200 residents.

1901: The Baptist church in Yama is dedicated in spring. The church has close ties with the Seattle Japanese Baptist Church.  Ministers from Seattle visit and preach weekly.

1901: Kihachi Hirakawa’s wife, Hiya, come from Japan to Yama.

1903: The Campbell brothers sell the mill, and mill ownership changes to David (Ned) Skinner and John W. Eddy.

1903: The Buddhist temple in Yama is dedicated. Reverend Gendo Nakai and Reverend Hoshin Fujii from the Seattle Buddhist Mission were regularly visitors to Yama.

1904: The Konos sell the Washington Hotel to Sohichi and Miki Shigemura. The Shigemura family (as of 1910 they were raising 4 children in Yama) continues to run the hotel for many years. The restaurant is popular with mill workers. Records show that the Reverend Fukumatsu Okazaki from the Seattle Japanese Baptist Church, and a local doctor, Dr. Tatsumaro Uyematsu stayed at the hotel.  

1904: Russo-Japanese War begins. Some of the men at Yama return to Japan to serve in the military.

1905: The Konos move to a mill at Campton (near present day Redmond).

1905: The Hirakawas leave Yama and move to Seattle. Kihachi will later leave Seattle and go to the Moody Bible Institute. He will return to Bainbridge in the 1920s and start a Japanese Baptist Church in Winslow.

1905: Seinosuke Takayoshi and Raku Haneda are married.

1907: April. The mill burns down. The owners, David Skinner and John W. Eddy, replace it with a smaller mill, leasing it and closing it down for periods.   

1907: The Gentlemen’s Agreement begins, impacting Japanese immigration to the U.S.  Wives and children could immigrant.  A number of picture brides immigrant. 

1908: There is a fire in Yama. The Everett Daily Herald (July 20th, p. 4) reports that approximately 20 houses were destroyed.

1911: April 8,9,10, the Taihoku Nippo (Great Northern Daily) runs a series of stories about Yama, Fife, and Vashon. 

1913: Alien Land laws being to pass.

1915: Seinosuke and Raku Takayoshi start operating greenhouses owned by Otto Peterson. The land and greenhouses are near Yama and Port Blakely. Cucumbers, tomatoes, other vegetables, and flowers are grown. Seinosuke and Raku and their family live at the east end of the property. They have 3 children while living in Yama, and Seinosuke’s son from his first marriage will come from Japan. 1915-1916: Sukezo (Henry) Takayoshi, Seinosuke’s first son from his first marriage in Japan, comes to Port Blakely to help with Seinosuke and Raku’s growing family. Henry is later known as an accomplished and influential photographer.

1915: With WWI, the sawmill will once again start full operation. 

1918: WWI ends November. 11, 1918.

1919: During the latter part of 1919, employment in the mill starts falling off.

1920: Tamegoro Takayoshi dies. His family stays in Yama, running the various family businesses.

1920: The Tsunehara family returns to Japan and their vegetable and flower gardens are taken over and run by the Nagatani family in Yama.

1921: Editorial by Tama Arai, who was born in Yama in 1901.  Her editorial is published in the English version of the Great Northern Daily News. Editorial is titled “My Conception of America”.  In her editorial, she challenges racial prejudice and discrimination.

1922: The mill closes down.

1922: U.S. Supreme Court ruling that Japanese could not become naturalized citizens. 

1924: Immigration Act. This act replaces the Gentlemen’s Agreement, impacting immigration. 

1924: The mill is torn down.

1924: Kihachi Hirakawa returns to the Puget Sound region. He describes salvaging wood from different building at Yama to build a church in Winslow in the mid to late 1920s.

1928: Seinosuke and Raku and their family move to Dr. Kellam’s property at Lynwwod near Pleasant Beach on Bainbridge to run greenhouses there. Seinosuke dies in 1935.

1929: The Takayoshis’ (Tamao and family) phone is disconnected. They move to Seattle.

While records have not indicated when Yama was officially abandoned, the disconnection of the Takayoshis’ phone is symbolic of the end of the village.

If you have inquiries, more information about Yama and the families who lived there, or find errors in the timeline, please contact Caroline Hartse.

Partners
Bainbridge Island Historical Museum         
Bainbridge Island Historic Preservation Commission
Bainbridge Island Japanese American Community          
Bainbridge Island Metro Park & Recreation District
Kitsap History Museum
Olympic College
University of Washington Burke Museum

Sponsors
Bainbridge Island Community Foundation
Bainbridge Island Historical Museum
Bainbridge Island Parks Foundation
Cultural Resource Consultants, Inc.
Olympic College Foundation
Olympic College
Rotary Club of Bainbridge Island
The Norcliffe Foundation

Secrets of Yama: Summer scholars search for clues from historic village
Bainbridge Island Review
August 8, 2016

Uncovering a “Lost” Japanese American Village in Bainbridge Island, Washington
A Behind the Scenes Interview with Archaeologist Floyd Aranyosi
Discover Nikkei
November 21, 2016

Yama Dig Yields Its Secrets
Kitsap Sun
September 4, 2107

Island’s Japanese villages earn national historic designation
Bainbridge Island Review 
June 10, 2018

Dr. Caroline Hartse - Project Manager 
Caroline is the Project Manager for the Yama Project. She is a cultural anthropologist who earned her Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of New Mexico in 1993, and has been faculty at OC since 1994.   Her research interests include cultural change, anthropology of religion, communitarian societies, and psychological anthropology.  

Floyd Aranyosi - Principal Investigator and Field Director
Floyd has been a professional archaeologist since 1993, and has worked on historic sites in coastal California, the High Sierras, and the Mississippi River valley, and on prehistoric sites in the Sierras, the Republic of Ireland, and the province of Northern Ireland. He has been teaching anthropology since 1994, and has been a member of the OC Adjunct Faculty since 2001. 

David R. Davis - Lab Supervisor
David is currently a research fellow, teaching assistant, and Master of Science candidate in Central Washington University's Cultural and Environmental Resource Management Program. He completed the CWU Archaeological Field School at Mt. Rainier, Washington in 2013. His interests include Pacific Northwest Coast and Plateau archaeology, burial site preservation, mountain archaeology, anthropology of religion, and American folklore and mythology.  David has worked on and recorded multiple prehistoric sites on the Columbia Plateau.

Jean Hannah - Field Supervisor
Jean returns this summer for her 3rd year working with the Yama Project.  She completed the Olympic College Yama Project Field School in 2015 and returned in 2016 as a Field Supervisor.  Her interests also extend to Museum Collections and Registrar work. She completed her University of Washington Museum Studies Certification this spring. She currently volunteers at the Suzzallo Special Collections Library, Visual Materials Department, at the University of Washington.  

Ashley Garrett - Field Supervisor
Ashley graduated from Folsom Lake Junior College in the spring of 2015 with an AA in "Interdisciplinary Studies" in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. She currently is a student at the University of California - Santa Cruz, UCSC, and will graduate June 17, 2017 with a Bachelors in Anthropology, with a heavy focus on Archaeology. In the spring of 2016, she attended an Archaeology Field Methods course for 3 months, excavating at the Cowell Lime Works located on the UCSC campus grounds. During the summer 2016 season, she was a student of the Yama project and has currently been involved in an independent student internship at UCSC doing artifact cataloging of the Cowell Lime Works project from the last 2 years (60 hours of lab work during the winter quarter, January-March, and will have an additional 60 hours completed by the end of May for a total of 120 hours of lab experience). She plans to work in the field of CRM for at least a year before continuing school. Her interests include archaeology of the Pacific Northwest Coast, cultural heritage preservation, and the joy of field work in general. 

Etsuko Evans - Research Assistant
Etsuko graduated from the University of Japan in Tokyo, earning a degree in teaching. Etsuko's passion is to help others learn, especially about Japanese culture and society. She joined Olympic College over five years ago as a Japanese instructor and tutor, and is currently taking courses at Olympic College to help advance her professional communication skills. Notable awards include receiving a Certificate of Recognition in 2010, as well as Dean's Scholar and President's Scholar awards. She enjoys teaching and dreams of becoming a teacher again.