By DEBERA CARLTON HARRELL
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

While growth has pushed out all but a few agricultural and dairy farmers protected by city farmland preservation measures, many longtime residents have not considered leaving. In fact, the tendency for Kent natives to remain has prompted an ongoing city mission to meet the needs of Kent's growing senior population. A senior activity center is one of the busier buildings in town. Locals meet there, take classes and shoot pool.

Jack Becvar, former president of the Greater Kent Historical Society and executive director of a new society museum opening in July, remembers picking beans in the valley and sledding down East Hill's James Street in the winters when police barricaded streets for youngsters. He vividly recalls the end of World War II when he was 12 years old; the bean field owner gave everyone the afternoon off.

"That's how most kids earned their first car -- by picking beans," said Becvar, who toiled for his Model-A Ford, then drove it on unpaved roads.

"The valley used to be prime farmland. There are still some working farms, but they are real holdouts," Becvar said. "It was an agricultural center until after the war, with some canneries and frozen food plants.Ê.Ê. Us older folks wish it was still a nice, green valley; newer folks weren't here when it was all truck farms. But it was like the Skagit Valley here -- imagine the Skagit being all warehouses now!"

During the war, Japanese farmers in the valley were uprooted, dispossessed of land and belongings, and transferred to internment camps. Town historians say that changed the demographics of Kent, created a labor shortage and left a sad legacy. Only a few farming families of Japanese ancestry remain in Kent.

Becvar's father recalled hearing up to 86 trains a day passing on the valley's two tracks as food and war materials were transferred through the region.

"I remember my mom pushing all the jars and canned food back on the shelves every time a train came," Becvar said. "It would shake everything."

Trains were not the first thing that shook up the area, however.

Continued:

• City now grows on once-fertile farmland
• Thriving Kent works to keep community of neighborhoods
• Booming farm community took root in valley
• 'Nice town' feel endures despite growth