On June 20, 2016, the Mukilteo City Council adopts the Japanese Gulch Master Plan to create a public park in the heart of the city. This decision is the culmination of several years of preservation efforts by citizen activists. Formalizing the park plan ensures that the many natural amenities in the 144-acre park and recreational opportunities will be preserved for future generations. The City of Mukilteo had acquired the land from private owners in a series of strategic purchases from 1996 to 2014. Adopting the park master plan allows recreation and natural use to triumph over rival land-use proposals, such as the development of a roadway to ease Mukilteo Speedway traffic and connect drivers to the waterfront and Mukilteo Ferry Terminal.
A Stretch of Woods and Wetlands
Japanese Gulch Park is a long and narrow stretch comprising 144 acres of woodlands and wetlands near downtown Mukilteo. Prior to non-Native settlement, indigenous inhabitants recognized the area now known as Japanese Gulch as a placer to the twentieth century's earliest inhabitants of the land. From 1903 to 1930, hundreds of Japanese immigrants lived in Mukilteo and worked for the Crown Lumber Company. The Japanese workers, along with their wives and children, established a Japanese enclave community in Mukilteo, and they lived in a cluster of wooden dwellings among the woods and wetlands. When the sawmill closed in 1930 due to the Great Depression, the Japanese community dispersed in search of jobs and opportunities. Their wooden structures quickly deteriorated and the land reverted back to a wilderness area.
During World War II, nearby Paine Field became an important site of national defense activities, and the Japanese Gulch land was useful for military endeavors. In 1950, the United States Air Force installed a tank farm on the land to support a squadron stationed at Paine Field during the Korean War. As the military needs waned, the land was once again used to support industrial uses. In 1966, aerospace giant Boeing constructed a railroad spur through Japanese Gulch in order to connect its manufacturing plant to the Great Northern Railway tracks. This steep stretch rail is still used to transport airplane parts.
In addition to the rail spur, business and government leaders long viewed the Japanese Gulch as an ideal location for transportation development projects. From 1970 to 2010, a proposal to build a highway bypass through the Japanese Gulch was on the books in Mukilteo. The proposal was meant to build a new route to alleviate traffic along the Mukilteo Speedway, connect travelers to Highway 526, and to provide easier waterfront and ferry access. The plan was abandoned in the City of Mukilteo's 2011 Comprehensive Plan Update.
From Private to Public
During this time in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, Japanese Gulch land was largely held by private owners. While transportation and industrial development plans were being made, community members treated the Japanese Gulch as a public park. They carved out their own trails for hiking, biking, and other recreational activities. The community treasured the land and appreciated its natural beauty, tranquility, and recreational opportunities so close to the waterfront and to town.
As transportation and industrialization plans continued to be formed and refined into the early twenty-first century, citizen activists led efforts to preserve the land as a public park. The Japanese Gulch Group led much of the grassroots efforts.
The City of Mukilteo owned only 20 acres of the land when the preservation efforts began. In a series of strategic purchases from 1996 to 2014, the city acquired the additional 123 acres needed to implement the citizen-led vision of a nature park. In 2009, the City of Mukilteo approved a plan for a community garden in the park, and in 2012 it approved the development of the Tails and Trails Dog Park on the land. These community-led initiatives helped cement the formal establishment of the Japanese Gulch as a multi-use park full of recreational and natural resources, rather than as an undeveloped zone for urban growth.
The City of Mukilteo's final purchase of 98 acres in February 2014 was the linchpin needed to connect the various pieces of park lands, transforming the Japanese Gulch Park from a dream to reality with city, county, and state funds and citizen-led preservation efforts.
