Rainier Valley ( ) is a
neighborhood
A neighbourhood (Commonwealth English) or neighborhood (American English) is a geographically localized community within a larger town, city, suburb or rural area, sometimes consisting of a single street and the buildings lining it. Neigh ...
in southeastern
Seattle
Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...
, Washington. It is located east of
Beacon Hill; west of
Mount Baker,
Seward Park, and
Leschi; south of the
Central District and north of
Rainier Beach. It is part of Seattle's
South End.
History
White explorers and settlers first arrived in the area in the 1850s, and an explorer named Issac Ebey
surveyed the area in 1850, with Ebey's assessment printed in an Oregon newspaper to entice other settlers. Native Americans had several encampments in the area prior to the settlers, and a permanent village at the south end of the valley.
Italians were prominent in the north Valley in the early 20th century, the Central Valley was mostly settled by the same settlers and northern-European immigrants (primarily
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies.
* British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...
and
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a subregion#Europe, subregion of northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It can sometimes also ...
n) who settled most of Seattle. Japanese farmers lived in the Valley since its inception and established two historic Japanese-American nurseries in the Valley - Mizukis and Holly Park, with Holly Park Nursery. Two housing projects were completed in the Valley during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
named; Holly Park and Rainier Vista. The housing projects were completed by the
Seattle Housing Authority to house Boeing and shipyard workers during the war. Following the war through the Boeing crash of 1971, the Valley boomed with middle-class residential construction and with all of this construction, the Valley continued its historic diversity. Interracial couples in the 1950s found the Valley more accepting than the northern half of the city because of the relative lack of "deed covenants" found in the South End (covenants ruled unconstitutional by the
United States Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...
in the 1960s).
The Civil Rights Act precipitated a "
white flight
The white flight, also known as white exodus, is the sudden or gradual large-scale migration of white people from areas becoming more racially or ethnoculturally diverse. Starting in the 1950s and 1960s, the terms became popular in the Racism ...
" from the valley despite its historic diversity. The general exodus of whites from the valley, Beacon Hill, and Seward Park, which began in the mid-60s, was primarily over by the mid-80s, when some historic "children of the Valley" began to return to it, as well as other new residents. With the end of the
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam w ...
in 1975, a wave of Vietnamese immigrants opened businesses along abandoned areas of Martin Luther King Jr. Way South, extending four miles south of the official
Little Saigon
Little Saigon () is a name given to ethnic enclaves of overseas Vietnamese, expatriate Vietnamese mainly in English-speaking countries. (). Saigon is the former name of the capital of the former South Vietnam (now Ho Chi Minh City), where a lar ...
neighborhood on South Jackson Street. Additional population growth was seen with the arrival of Filipinos throughout the Valley, though their businesses are fewer. St. Edward Roman Catholic Church is the cultural heart of the Filipino community in the Valley.
The Valley neighborhoods lying along Rainier Avenue South rival any other part of Seattle for age, since they are near the historic streetcar (removed in 1937) that in 1892 connected downtown Seattle to Columbia City and then later to Renton, known as the "Rainier Valley and Renton Railroad." The railroad, the reorientation of the
Duwamish River and the lowering of
Lake Washington
Lake Washington () is a large freshwater lake adjacent to the city of Seattle, Washington, United States.
It is the largest lake in King County, Washington, King County and the second largest natural lake in the state of Washington (state), Was ...
, which caused the lake to drain west through
Lake Union and the
Ship Canal
A ship canal is a canal especially intended to accommodate ships used on the oceans, seas, or lakes to which it is connected.
Definition
Ship canals can be distinguished from barge canals, which are intended to carry barges and other vessel ...
rather than south, made the valley dry enough to allow building, where it boomed along with the rest of Seattle on and after the Alaskan Gold rush right up to the Depression of the 1930s. Because Seattle was a hamlet before the 1889 Alaskan Gold Rush, there is little to distinguish the historic parts of Rainier Valley from other historic neighborhoods in Seattle. Away from Rainier Avenue South, a fair amount of the development is postwar, when the Valley was filled out as part of the "Boeing boom," but historic pre-World War II housing can be found in every part of the Valley, where these often imposing homes once commanded large spreads that were later subdivided and sold off. One such estate was owned from 1902 to 1916 by a certain up-and-coming dry-goods purveyor by the name of J. Walter Nordstrom, who brought up his young family of three children there, as documented by the Rainier Valley Historical Society in 2017 (the estate was at the 3700 block of South Juneau Street). Unlike most of Seattle, then, the Valley has an interesting mix of pre- and post-war houses cheek-to-jowl (in Seattle residential style), with only the neighborhood immediately surrounding Columbia City almost exclusively pre-World War II.
Geography
There are several identifiable neighborhoods within Rainier Valley, including (from north to south) "Garlic Gulch" (or the north Valley, from Dearborn to the junction of MLK and Rainier), "Genesee" (from the junction to Alaska),
Columbia City (Alaska to Dawson),
Hillman City (Dawson to Graham),
Brighton
Brighton ( ) is a seaside resort in the city status in the United Kingdom, city of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, England, south of London.
Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze Age Britain, Bronze Age, R ...
(Graham to Kenyon),
Dunlap (Kenyon to Cloverdale), and
Rainier Beach, which is the only neighborhood in the city where Black Americans make up the majority, at 55%.
The Valley is centered on Rainier Avenue South and Martin Luther King Jr. Way South, its main (northwest- and southeast-bound) thoroughfares. Both Rainier Avenue South and the Valley were named after
Mount Rainier
Mount Rainier ( ), also known as Tahoma, is a large active stratovolcano in the Cascade Range of the Pacific Northwest in the United States. The mountain is located in Mount Rainier National Park about south-southeast of Seattle. With an off ...
, towards which “
rough a fortunate geographic circumstance” the Valley (and hence the street) is oriented. Rainier Avenue South goes through several distinct phases as it winds southeasterly toward
Renton, with the north portion being mainly commercial, the central (Columbia City) portion a densely populated historic district, and the southern portion a less dense collection of businesses, apartments, and houses.
Martin Luther King Jr. Way South (usually shortened to "MLK Way"), formerly known as Empire Way (renamed in the 1980s), now carries Seattle's
light rail line for the length of the valley until it veers west to serve the North Beacon Hill neighborhood, SoDo industrial area, and downtown Seattle. Light rail and its attendant improvements (most notably underground wiring) have breathed new life into Martin Luther King Jr. Way South, considered at least since the 1970s beset by "social, physical, and economic blight", tracing difficulties to the
Boeing bust – hitting hard in Rainier Valley with its high density of factory workers – and exacerbated by the later construction of a freeway interchange that disrupted a once vital commercial district. The construction of light rail brought new residential and commercial development to stations at Columbia City and Othello.
Demographics
It is among the most culturally and economically diverse neighborhoods in the
Pacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest (PNW; ) is a geographic region in Western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though no official boundary exists, the most common ...
. The neighborhood's population is 34,241, with Asians making up the largest group (with Filipinos the largest within the Asian population of the Valley). However, there remains a large African American population, as well as European Americans. Its zip code is 98118, which also includes the neighborhood directly east of Rainier Valley of
Seward Park. Beacon Hill to the west is largely 98108. "Greater Rainier Valley" can be thought of as including the western slope of Lakewood/Seward Park, and the eastern rise of Beacon Hill.
Rainier Valley's racial breakdown is 20.9% Caucasian, 32% African American, 34.1% Asian, 1% Native American, 1.6% Pacific Islander, 6.5% Mixed Race, and 3.4% from other races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 7.2% of the population. 11.1% of families and 13.9% of the population were below the poverty line. Nearly one quarter of the cities' African-American population resides in Rainier Valley.
Public safety
Beginning in the 1960s, Rainier Valley began to be viewed as "unsafe," with this view peaking in the 1980s and the Valley did include two housing projects; Rainier Vista and New Holly (previously known as Holly Park). The area is the home of organized gangs with rivalries against each other and groups in other neighborhoods. Of the 28 homicides in Seattle in 2008, six occurred in Rainier Valley.
In 2006, the
Seattle Police Department
The Seattle Police Department (SPD) is the principal police force, law enforcement agency of the city of Seattle, Washington, United States. It is responsible for the entire city except for the campus of the University of Washington (which is und ...
announced that the South Precinct, which includes Rainier Valley had dropped in crime rate by 8% for the first ten months of 2006. Auto thefts and thefts in general had decreased with robbery and gang activity still highly reported.
Economy
There are many different areas to purchase food within the neighborhood, with many small delis, bakeries and restaurants.
References
External links
Seattle City Clerk's Neighborhood Map Atlas — Rainier ValleyRainier Valley through the years 88 historic Rainier Valley photos from the ''
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The ''Seattle Post-Intelligencer'' (popularly known as the ''Seattle P-I'', the ''Post-Intelligencer'', or simply the ''P-I'') is an online newspaper and former print newspaper based in Seattle, Washington (state), Washington, United States.
Th ...
''
{{Seattle neighborhoods