Voices of Bellevue: Owen Ostbo | Heritage Corner

Published 12:24 pm Friday, April 4, 2014

Eastside Heritage Center’s oral history collection contains almost 270 interviews. In the following excerpt from his 1993 oral history (edited for clarity) Owen Ostbo describes what life was like in the Mercer Slough. His family lived on the Winters House property from 1937 until about 1939.

Interviewer:  What do you remember of the life here in the slough?

Owen Ostbo:  Well, I enjoyed it because I liked to hunt and fish in those days.  And there were a lot of pheasants and ducks down here, so I enjoyed that. The area was not populated like it is now.  I mean, Bellevue consisted of about four blocks of Main Street from 100th Avenue to 104th.  That was just about it. And then they started, oh, shortly before World War II, expanding out further east on Main Street.  And then, of course, Freeman built quite a bit of the shopping center up on, oh, south of Northeast 8th.

Interviewer:  In the slough, well, we’ve been told that there were coyotes.

Owen:  You know, we heard coyotes more in the later years we were here.  In the early days, we never heard coyotes. Right down at the first bend in the road, there used to be a driveway swinging off to the left there that went to the blueberry farm.  And then there was kind of a raised area that went out in a diagonal line out towards the slough there. Anyway, I heard that the railroad at one time was going to cross the slough instead of building that trestle up at Wilburton.  And Walter Winters took me out and showed me what they called the “pothole.”  There was a big pond where there was good duck-hunting. And, you know, there was rows of piling both ways from that.  And then there was a rather long, narrow pond and pilings sticking out both side of it.  Anyway, I was told that the railroad had lost a locomotive in there when they were trying to cross the slough.

Heritage Corner is a feature in the Bellevue Reporter. To learn more about Bellevue and Eastside history contact the Eastside Heritage Center at 425-450-1049 or visit EastsideHeritageCenter.org.