Bainbridge Island Japanese American Community

Yama at Port Blakely – late 19th Century

With lumber donated by the mill, Japanese immigrants built these homes along the hillside above Port Blakely harbor. Yama housed some 300 residents in about fifty homes. After the mill closed in the early 1920s the town was demolished. Today there is very little evidence of this bustling town.

(Bainbridge Island Historical Society Collection, credit Viola Lund)