Rating: 7.5/10.
Local history book focused on Bellevue, beginning with the first settlers in the area in the 1870s: Mercer and Meydenbauer were the first pioneers, then by the 1890s, a variety of families had settled and built log cabins. The first school opened in 1883, and several more opened in the next few years, moving to larger buildings.
By the 1890s, there were improved roads, more settlers, and still mostly just rural farmland. Ferry service ran briefly for a few years around 1900 and attracted day-trippers from Seattle. In the 1900s to 1910s, Bellevue got a high school, post office, compass factory, and Japanese laborers working at a packing plant, as well as the telephone.
In the 1920s, there was the first highway link to Seattle and the first rickety bridge to Mercer Island, and the ferry service resumed with automobiles. In the 1930s, there was a town with a population of around 3,000, known for its dairy farms, strawberry festival, and candy store.
The 1940s was the turning point with the opening of the floating bridge, cutting the commute time from Seattle down to 15 minutes. After this point, there was rapid expansion from a small town to suburb to metropolis, and fields were paved with parking lots. In the 1950s to 60s, there was rapid expansion with thousands of new homes, turning into a city with a central water supply, hospitals, and shopping centers.
By 1984, a second floating bridge had opened, Bellevue Center had expanded, and the city had annexed several adjacent cities as well. Overall, a fairly quick read of about 150 pages with lots of historical black and white images sourced from the archives and anecdotes about various people who lived at various points in the city’s history. Since the focus is hyper-local on just Bellevue, there is no mention of any broader events or neighboring areas like Seattle. The book also ends just before the tech boom in the 1990s, since Microsoft or Amazon came mostly after the book had been published.
