Mukai Farm & Garden, on Vashon, is revitalized — word is getting out that the historic site is a restored and restorative place to visit, celebrate, share Vashon history and make new stories.
In celebrating this Vashon treasure, Vashon Chamber has given Mukai one of its highest honors, naming a character representing the historic farm, Mukai Marshall Strawberry, as the Grand Marshal of the 2022 Strawberry Festival parade.
“We accept this honor in our name — but it really belongs to the entire agricultural community who worked for many years to make the Marshall strawberry such a sweet, important crop for Vashon,” said Tina Shattuck, Mukai’s executive director. “We hope the future holds much more for the Marshall strawberry —both as a backyard garden fruit and one that will be known country-wide.”
Mukai’s events so far in 2022 have included a retrospective of artist Akio Takemori, a remembrance of the 80thanniversary of Japanese incarceration, the first Vashon Agricultural Fair, and a Juneteenth picnic.
Other fun, free all-ages experiences are Mukai’s Japan Fest, coming in September, as well as hands-on “Crafternoons,” Japanese conversation practice, Movies at Mukai, and its Anime Club.
The farm’s next big community project, the Fruit Barreling Plant, will add to Vashon’s gatherings and economy for many future Strawberry Fests to come, said Shattuck.
Lynann Politte, a member of the Chamber of Commerce, said that the Chamber’s choice of Mukai’s Marshall strawberry was made in recognition of the historical significance of the Marshall strawberry to Vashon and the work Mukai Farm and Garden is doing to preserve its history.
“The Strawberry Festival’s origin is directly tied to strawberry farming and so it seemed only fitting to acknowledge the Marshall strawberry as Grand Marshal,” said Politte.
In “Strawberry Farming on Vashon,” island historian Bruce Haulman detailed the history of the fruit on Vashon.
It began, wrote Haulman, in the early 1890s, with the first commercially grown strawberries on Vashon attributed to John Cage Gorsuch on his farm just north of Vashon town, where Gorsuch Road is now.
The island’s mild temperature and easy access to marine transportation contributed to strawberries quickly becoming an important crop, and in 1909, the Vashon Island News proclaimed Vashon as the “Home of the Big Red Strawberry.”
By 1912, Vashon would ship 100 rail cars of strawberries, and the Burton Fair advertised “Eat 20 miles of strawberries” as 1800 visitors came to the island to visit strawberry farms. Vashon strawberries continued to be celebrated at various Strawberry Festivals at Burton, Vashon, and Ellisport. In 1923, 101-year-old Melissa Jaynes was crowned Vashon’s First Strawberry Queen.
During the 1910s and 1920s, Japanese farmers began to immigrate to Vashon to farm strawberries and came to dominate the production of the fruit. The center of the success for Vashon strawberries was the once-famous Marshall Strawberry, described as the “tastiest berry ever grown.”
It was known for its amazing flavor, beautiful red coloring, and exceptional size. However, they were delicate, had a limited shelf life, and bruised easily, so were not suitable for shipping. Therefore, they dropped out of favor for more robust but less flavorful strawberries. By the mid-1980s, due to various factors that impacted the profitability of strawberries, Vashon strawberry farming had come to an end.
Now with the hard work of various Vashon enthusiasts, the Marshall strawberry has returned to Vashon and is being grown, albeit in small patches.
Mukai plays its role in educating and keeping alive the spirit of the historical context of Japanese residents, farming and the Marshall strawberry.
“By honoring the Marshall strawberry as Grand Marshal, we hope to shine a light on the significance and origin of Vashon’s Strawberry Festival,” said Politte.
—Bruce Haulman contributed to this article.
