Kids, fingers sticky with strawberry juice and parents as giddy as the younger crowd about a few sunny hours, turned out this weekend for Bellevue’s prelude to summer, the annual Strawberry Festival. Celebrations included food vendors, carnival games and a strawberry shortcake eating contest. A vintage car show and full music lineup rounded out the festivities at Crossroads Park.
“It’s all about celebrating the past,” said Heather Trescases director of the Eastside Heritage Center, which hosts the event, “and about bringing the community together.”
You wouldn’t know it from Bellevue’s growing skyline, but years ago the city was a patchwork of strawberry fields, many of them tended by Japanese American farmers, with produce going to the fast-expanding Seattle. In 1925 the first Strawberry Festival was held, funded with just $40 and attracting mostly crowds from across the lake.
“It literally put Bellevue ‘on the map [and sent visitors away] with the impression that there was a beautiful town and a fruitful district settled by a courteous, hospitable people,” read the front page of the Lake Washington Reflector after the festival’s debut.
During WWII the festival was suspended as most strawberry farmers were interned for their Japanese American identity. Forty-five years later the Eastside Heritage Center revived the beloved tradition.
“Back in the day everybody came for the shortcake and the entertainment,” said Trescases of the festival’s enduring charm. “They still come for the shortcake and the entertainment, but other aspects as well, whether it’s food, family or the [historical] activities.”
Despite overcast skies on Sunday, more than 45,000 turned out over the course of the weekend. Attractions included a mini museum of old-fashioned household utensils and farming equipment, kid-friendly projects like time capsules and lots of fresh produce. Trescases said her kids’ own favorites — ages five and two — were the face painting booths.
For more information about the history of the event and this year’s sponsors, visit the festival’s website.
Heather Trescases, director of the Eastside Heritage Center said her kids’ favorite attraction may have been the face painting. CELINA KAREIVA, BELLEVUE REPORTER
Vendors sold everything from Polish sausages to ice cream, lemonade, curly fries and cotton candy. CELINA KAREIVA, BELLEVUE REPORTER
Festival attendees look at artifacts from Eastside Heritage Center’s mini tent museum, among them a tool for coring apples and a spoon for removing the cream off the top of milk bottles. CELINA KAREIVA, BELLEVUE REPORTER
Sunday’s drizzle brought sparser crowds but kids still danced in front of the stage. CELINA KAREIVA, BELLEVUE REPORTER
