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Meet Cathy Fields and read her artist statement for Hillman City's newest landmark, the Hillman City Heritage Bell.
Cathy Fields, a mural artist and lifelong resident of Seattle's Hillman City, masterfully blends the real and the imagined in her visual storytelling.
Selected by the Rainier Valley Historical Society during their 2020 “Call for Artists,” Cathy’s work intertwines echoes of the past with the blur of contemporary times, resonating deeply with the community she has called home for 50 years.
Artist’s Narrative for “Looking Back” Hillman City Heritage Bell
Cathy Fields - April 2023
The following is a narrative that goes with the stories circling the bell. Moving left to right
around the bell and beginning with the vignette of native people gathering food and
moving to the right around the bell:
As the ice age ended, humankind arrived along the Pacific coast. The indigenous people who inhabited what was to become the Seattle area were here for over 10,000 years before the Euro-Americans arrived. The Coast Salish people were made up of various tribes that shared a common language. The scene depicted is of summer time when local tribes come to Lake Washington’s coastlines to harvest food to preserve for the winter. The men would fish and hunt, and women would gather various herbs, berries, fresh water mussels, or, as in this picture, dig camas roots, and much more.
Moving right around the bell, the depicted one-room cabin became a neighborhood
store in 1901 when Rhineholt and Louise Hausler moved to the area and purchased the
property from Clarence D. Hillman. They quickly opened for business on Rainier Avenue
at Graham Street. The Hausler store supplied Hillman City residents with a variety of
household necessities and kitchen staples. The electric railway stopped a few feet from
their porch delivering much of the goods that stocked their store. The Hauslers eventually
build a bigger store further south on Rainier Ave. and moved there in 1921.
The woman to the right of the store is Mrs. Fumiko M. Noji who, with her husband and
family, ran the enterprising Columbia Greenhouse and Nursery between South Orcas and Juneau Streets and what is now Martin Luther King Jr. Way from 1918-1996. They had a reputation for their wonderful tomatoes. Her father-in-law, Isao Noji, was one of the Japanese Chamber of Commerce men who brought the cherry trees from Japan to Seward Park. When the family was interned during World War ll, a good friend who managed the grounds of Sick’s Stadium moved into their home and cared for the property until their return. Eventually a fourth generation family member moved the greenhouses to Kent and the award winning Noji Gardens affordable housing community was planned and built on the property by HomeSight.
Also shown in this vignette is the Seattle Renton & Southern Railway that enabled valley farmers to transport their produce into town, make trips to visit friends and family, and encouraged development and new businesses. Sadly funding, safety, and reliability were problematic leading to a loss of licensing. The rails were torn up in 1937 to make way for more buses, trucks and cars.
The church building in the distance hosted a number of different faiths over the years.
Before it was torn down, the bell was donated to the Rainier Valley Historical Society and is now the “canvas” for this painting.
The original Fire Station 28 was built in 1910, three years after Hillman City was annexed into Seattle. It was located at 4525 S. Orcas Street, just east of Rainier Ave. They used horses to pull the hose wagons until they became motorized in 1924. In 1955 the old station was closed and moved to a newly built station at its current location on Rainier Avenue.
Rainier Valley wouldn’t be complete without Mt. Rainier. On a clear day it may loom
large and appear deceptively near from Seward Park or when driving south on Rainier Ave. Here it is a backdrop for the title section, Looking Back. This Vignette speaks to the valley’s history as a destination for many different immigrant populations over the decades, enriching the area with cultural diversity, perhaps one of our greatest assets.
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