Strawberry Festival in Bellevue, WA
It is said that one night, early in 1925, Mrs Charles W. Bovee dreamt of a celebration in Bellevue that would bring hundreds of visitors and a great deal of recognition to her small and much-loved hometown. Mr and Mrs Bovee, along with Mr William Cruse, set out to make this dream a reality. Their idea? A festival honouring Bellevue’s bountiful strawberry crops. The Strawberry Festival Committee, comprising 5 men and 5 women of the community, raised $40.00 to finance Bellevue’s first-ever Strawberry Festival in June 1925, a four-day event that attracted more than 3,000 visitors. Following the event, the front page of The Lake Washington Reflector read: “The Strawberry Festival (…) must be regarded as an unqualified success. (…) It literally put Bellevue ‘on the map’…” and sent visitors away “with the impression that there were a beautiful town and a fruitful district settled by a courteous, hospitable people.”
From that moment on, the Lake Washington Strawberry Festival, as it came to be known, was an annual event, spread over 2 or 3 days. The festival was held behind the Old Main Street School, located at the southeast corner of Main Street and 100th, until 1931, when it moved to the Bellevue Clubhouse (site of today’s Bellevue Boys and Girls Club). The Strawberry Festival not only attracted visitors from all over King County, it also encouraged the participation of other Eastside communities such as Renton and Kirkland, who often provided a day’s worth of entertainment for the event.
| Walking into the festival | With numerous stalls around |
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Above images are my photographs from last year's festival.
This year, it's happening again in June, and you are all welcome!
