Edmonds College archaeological dig helps piece together Japanese history in Mukilteo

In late 19th-century Japan, challenging economic conditions in rural areas led many farmers to emigrate to the West Coast in search of economic stability. Seattle was a major port of entry for these men, who were recruited to work in booming sectors such as lumber, agriculture, mining, fish processing and railroad construction. 

In Mukilteo, the Mukilteo Lumber Company (later the Crown Lumber Company) began hiring Japanese workers in 1903. Within six years, the community of Japanese residents had reached 100 – almost half the town’s population – and began to include brides and eventually the resulting children. They created a community of wooden houses in a ravine that would come to be known as Japanese Gulch. 

Ethnographic accounts mention single-story family homes, a two-story dormitory for 45 single men, along with many social activities and venues: a community garden, playground, baseball team, community hall and a boys’ club. But within a few years of the Great Depression, the mill closed and most of the Japanese Gulch residents dispersed to find work elsewhere.

Nearly a century later, there is no visible evidence of this community in the Gulch, which is now a wooded park owned by the City of Mukilteo, frequented by hikers and mountain bikers. 

So how do we know – and learn more – about this community? Anthropologists Ashely Pickard and Alicia Valentino, both faculty members at Edmonds College, have been working for years to help uncover and recover its history. In 2010, Valentino conducted the first archeological survey in the Gulch. 

“We knew of the Japanese Gulch community because there were still some living descendents back then,” said Pickard, who is head of the anthropology department at Edmonds College. “We were able to draw from oral histories, photos and maps to piece together more information about the location and daily lives of residents.”

In 2012, Pickard led a second archeological dig at the Gulch through Edmonds College. These first two surveys excavated evidence of the residents’ daily lives: glass bottles, ceramic dishware, metal and glass fixtures, nails and many shoes.

This August, Pickard and Valentino headed up a third dig through the Edmonds College Japanese Gulch Archaeology Field School. Using shovels, toothbrushes, large tray-shaped sieves and plenty of patience and care, approximately 20 students learned and applied the archaeological techniques of surveying, meticulous excavation and artifact analysis to an undisclosed site in the Gulch.

“With this dig, we’re trying to determine the exact location of houses,” Valentino said.

“And overall, we want students to have an appreciation for history and our ties with the past.”

Come fall semester, the artifacts will be further analyzed and catalogued in a lab methods class at Edmonds College. After that they will be taken to the Burke Museum, which serves as the state’s official repository for natural history and cultural objects.

Pickard and Valentino hope to share some of the findings from the field school at a public exhibition in early 2026.

To learn more about the history of Japanese Gulch and its residents, check out the Mukilteo Historical Society and the Burke Museum.