The Rainier Valley Historical Society: A Changing Community Needs Its History
Mikala Woodward, Society Director

The Rainier Valley Historical Society has roots that go back to April, 1891 when the first lots went up for sale in the newly platted town of Columbia. At that time the Rainier Valley was mostly wooded, populated by a few homesteader families. Real estate developer J.K. Edmiston decided the area was ripe for development. He built a streetcar line from downtown Seattle through the Rainier Valley, and began promoting Columbia as the key community along the line.

The families who bought those first lots in Columbia went on to create the town pretty much from scratch – they graded the streets, put in the water system, built the school, and collected taxes to pay for it all. They met in April 1892 to celebrate their first year in Columbia, and the “Columbia Pioneers,” as they called themselves, continued to meet every April after that for a full century.

That century brought enormous growth and change to the Rainier Valley. The town of Columbia was incorporated in 1893 and annexed to the City of Seattle in 1907, along with the rest of Southeast Seattle. Communities grew up along the streetcar line—Atlantic Street, York Station, Columbia, Hillman City, Brighton, and Rainier Beach. Immigrants from Italy, England, Germany, Japan, and the Philippines arrived, along with folks from the Midwest and East Coast looking for new opportunities out West. The Second World War brought even more newcomers to wartime housing at Rainier Vista and Holly Park, and jobs and Boeing and the shipyards brought economic growth as well.

During the postwar decades, the economy boomed, and then declined dramatically. The Rainier Valley became more economically and racially diverse as African Americans, Southeast Asian refugees, Orthodox Jews, and many others moved into the area.

Through all of this, the Columbia Pioneers continued to meet, and to collect photographs and other materials documenting the development of their beloved community. But by 1993 their numbers had dwindled, and their restrictive membership requirements—you had to be descended from the original Pioneers or a 50 year resident of the Valley—made it difficult for them to reach out to newcomers and embrace the growing diversity of the neighborhood.

Buzz Anderson, president of the Pioneers at that time, made a bold move—he called for the organization to dissolve, and reform itself as an open membership non-profit called the Rainier Valley Historical Society. The RVHS inherited the Pioneers’ collections and much of their membership, but made the leap to a more publicly oriented organization dedicated to serving the whole population of the Rainier Valley.

The new group began with a thorough cataloging project funded by the Department of Neighborhoods, which also produced a series of display boards about Rainier Valley history that are still in use today. From there the organization has grown steadily, hiring its first staff member—part-time Director Mikala Woodward—in 2001.

One challenge was finding a way to explore the neighborhood’s rich ethnic history, while making connections with the many different cultural communities that make up the Rainier Valley. The Rainier Valley Food Stories Project, a two-year multi-cultural oral history project based on food, resulted in the 2003 publication The Rainier Valley Food Stories Cookbook. The book is a culinary history of the Rainier Valley, going back 100 years, with historic photos, recipes, and stories about food from a dozen different ethnic groups. (The book’s first printing sold out; the second printing is now available from the RVHS or the Bookworm Exchange bookstore in Columbia City.)

Another goal of the RVHS has been to involve kids in their neighborhood’s history. The 2002 Courtland Place Archaeological Dig did just that, bringing 4th and 5th graders from John Muir Elementary School together with archaeologists from the Burke Museum to unearth an old dump in the neighborhood. Artist Don Fels conceived the project and brought the RVHS in as a partner. The kids conducted oral histories with neighbors, consulted old maps, and analyzed historic photos in order to understand the context for the artifacts they dug up, most of which dated from the 1920s and ‘30s. An exhibit of their work, Looking Into Courtland Place, is on display at the Museum of History and Industry.

Last year another school project, “The Hidden Stream of Columbia City” won a Heritage Education Award from AKCHO. Students at Orca @ Columbia Elementary School researched the history of a stream that once ran behind their school. They used historic maps, photographs, and documents to determine where the stream had been, and what had happened to it. Then they marked the path of the stream with blue irrigation flags through the park near the school, and created a display board to explain what they had uncovered. The route of the historic will be commemorated in the park this fall, with a sinuous path embedded with softly glowing blue tiles.

As the 21st century begins, light rail construction and rising real estate values are bringing a new round of development and a fresh wave of newcomers to the Rainier Valley. The RVHS welcomes these changes, while working to connect new development and new residents to the neighborhood’s rich and varied history. Through publications, displays, and special projects, the RVHS strives to involve Rainier Valley residents of all ages in discovering and enjoying the stories of the past.

The RVHS now faces a new challenge. For over a decade the organization has made its home in the Rainier Valley Cultural Center, but the sufficient space will no longer be available there in the near future. The RVHS is seeking affordable office, storage, and display space in or near Columbia City.

For now, however, the office in the Rainier Valley Cultural Center is open to the public Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 10 am to 1 pm, or by appointment. The web site (currently under construction) can be found at www.rainiervalleyhistory.org. Please call (206) 722-2838 or e-mail rvhsoffice@aol.com for more information.

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