On March 30, 1942, the Winslow ferry terminal on Bainbridge Island became the site of one of the most significant and shameful events in Pacific Northwest history. On March 30, 1942 — three weeks after President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 — the 227 Japanese Americans living on Bainbridge Island became the first people in the country removed under the order. Armed soldiers escorted the community — farmers, fishermen, shopkeepers, children, and grandparents — onto the ferry to Seattle, then onto a train to Manzanar, a concentration camp in the California desert.
They had six days' notice to dispose of their property, homes, and boats. Some neighbors who remained helped tend the farms and, after the war, helped families return. The Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial here — a wooden wall bearing the names of every person removed — commemorates the events of that morning.
The ferry crossing back to Seattle follows the same route they were forced to take in 1942. Stand at the rail and consider what this water witnessed.