Exploring the Eastside: Kelsey Creek Park

Exploring the Eastside is an occasional series spotlighting the Eastside's special places. If you've got a suggestion, send it to east@seattletimes.com or call us at 425-453-2130.

It's a slice of the rural past in the heart of modern Bellevue.

Just a short drive from Interstate 405 sits a quiet stretch of Kelsey Creek, where two white barns tower over a nearly 150-acre expanse of forest and wetlands.

It was called the Twin Valley Dairy as far back as the 1920s, when it supplied Eastside residents with fresh butter, cream and milk. Today, it's called Kelsey Creek Park — a hiker's magnet, demonstration farm and window into Bellevue's past.

"If you didn't know Seattle was just a few miles away and downtown [Bellevue] a few blocks away, you'd think you were out in the sticks," Bellevue resident Rick Philbrick said, while his 2-year-old son played on a nearby teeter-totter.

The city-owned park is a popular destination for sneaking a peek at nature.

Each fall, Kelsey Creek, which feeds into Mercer Slough, is full of spawning chinook, coho and sockeye salmon. Look up from the more than 2 miles of trails that wind through the park, and you might see hawks, herons, spotted towhees or winter wrens.

The hills on either side of the barns are dense with alders, poplars, Douglas firs, flowering cherries, birches and willows.

The valley's pastures are home to grazing goats, sheep, horses and cattle. Honored residents include 750-pound Molly the sow and 1,700-pound Cowboy the steer.

"We tell everybody 'put your walking shoes on — it's like going to your aunt's farm,' " said Annamarie Solomonson, the park-services supervisor.

On some days, middle-schoolers can be seen learning how to tend to the large animals, from what they eat to how they respond to humans. The park is also a popular place for members of Kelsey Creek Critters, a 4-H club, to show off their rabbits.

A short walk from the barns is the historic Frazer Cabin — built in 1888, when just 300 people lived in what is now Bellevue.

"People say they like to see what Bellevue was like before we got all built-up and high-tech," said Michelle Carufel, the farm's lead caretaker. "It wasn't so long ago."

Eighty-seven-year-old Alta Starkel remembers. After all, it was her family that moved onto the land in 1921 and started the dairy.

Just a few years before, the Wilburton lumber mill had operated on the property, which bordered a swamp that fed into Mercer Slough and Lake Washington. The swamp was drained so berries and vegetables could be grown.

Starkel, who was then Alta Duey, remembers riding with teams of horses that were used to clear the land of mill bark. When the work was finished, the family let its dairy cows graze.

Eventually, the family's herd of 32 produced a couple hundred quarts of milk a day. Starkel's mother, Pearl, delivered home-churned butter and milk to locals.

In 1942 the Dueys sold the farm, which was called Twin Valley Dairy for the two valleys on each side of the barns.

Two years later, Ray and Nettie Fisher bought the property and eventually phased out the dairy and raised beef cattle.

Spurred by a citizens' petition, the city purchased part of the farm in 1968 and opened it as a park in 1972. That same year, a Jersey cow named Beauty was found wandering Wilburton Hill, just north of the farm. With no owner to be found, the city gave Beauty a home at the park. Animals have been on display since.

Starkel, who now lives in Puyallup, said she makes it up to the old homestead a few times a year. She sometimes watches kids play, chats with Molly or Cowboy and remembers a farm not all that unlike the one today.

"It's being maintained so beautifully and is of service to so many people," Starkel said. "Isn't that the greatest thing that could happen to a memory?"

Michael Burnham: 206-464-2243 or mburnham@seattletimes.com