Built by relatives of the founder of Seattle, the barn has withstood the internment of its Japanese-American owners during World War II. It has lived through the modernization of the dairy industry and, more recently, it has survived a decade of abandonment.
Though county records date the barn to 1920, I have found other sources that say it was built 12 years earlier by Daniel Waldo Bass when he converted the land six miles north of Arlington from a logging camp to a dairy farm. Also in 1908, Bass, the grandson of Oregon pioneers, married Sophie Frye, the granddaughter of Seattle founders Arthur and Mary Ann Boren Denny. Did you catch that? The founders of Seattle grandkids built this barn.
Kamezo and Mije Nakashima began operating the farm almost as soon as it was established. For about 30 years, the Japanese immigrants and some of their 11 children lived on the farm and worked the land. They were one of just two Japanese farming families in Snohomish County at the time, and likely the only one to operate a dairy.
Anti-Asian land restriction laws and citizenship restrictions prohibited Japanese immigrants from owning property. So the Basses were unable to sell Kamezo and Mije Nakashima the farm. In 1936, they transferred the deed to one of the Nakashimas' sons, Takeo Nakashima, who was an American citizen and around 24 years old at the time.
Five years later, the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor blasted apart the peaceful life the Nakashimas had built on the farm.
With internment imminent, the Nakashimas were given just 10 days to sell more than 1,000 acres of land that spanned Snohomish and Skagit counties, and included a barn, a farm, and dozens of registered Guernsey cattle. They sold it all for around $10 an acre to a man who visited the farm looking to buy a bull.
Snohomish County bought 83 acres of the former Nakashima farm in 1996 and plans to begin transforming it into the north trailhead of the cross-county Centennial Trail in fall 2008. While the county's first priority is getting the trail laid, it's also considering developing the barn for visitors.
With its arched metal roof, the Nakashima barn is a good example of gambrel style architecture.
Sources: The Everett Herald October 30, 2007
This picture of the barn through the reeds came from the Everett Herald article. It was so beautiful I wanted to share!