A brief history

Originally published Saturday, November 9, 1996

By MARK HIGGINS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Dietrick Jones, president of the city's historical society, says the first land claims made in the area were recorded in the 1860s. It was about that time when the federal government grubbed out a thoroughfare that years later became Highway 99.

By the late 1920s, a handful of rural schools had sprouted and then were consolidated into a single district -- the Federal Way School District. That name stuck, and the entire area became known as Federal Way.

One of the area's early promoters was J.R. Cissna, who built the original Federal Way Shopping Center on Highway 99. He constructed a mock Bavarian village in the mall, which was called Santa Faire.

It didn't do very well, and by the late 1960s Cissna and his partners were charged with 29 counts of fraud and conspiracy. Eventually, they were cleared.

Not too many years after Cissna faded from the scene, Dick Balsh, the flamboyant car dealer, appeared. Balsh was enmeshed in a bizarre 1978 criminal case in which a former house guest forced his way back into Balsh's posh Redondo home. The man attacked one of four "cleaning" women at the house and demanded Balsh turn over cash and cocaine.

Balsh long ago departed Federal Way. It seemed the city finally grew up.