He proved an able merchant, and his Furuya Company made profits in trade related to the Sino-Japanese War and Klondike Gold Rush, and gained many customers in Seattle's growing Japanese community: this was the period in which the N.Y.K. line (now Nippon Yusen) began direct steamship service between Seattle and Yokohama. Seattle's Japanese population grew from 125 in 1890 to 2,884 in 1900. His blue-suited "Furuya men" traveled the west, taking orders for goods from Japanese laborers throughout the region. His business came to involve wholesale, retail, and import-export. Besides being a major supplier of Japanese foodstuffs in the region, he opened an Oriental fine arts store in 1895, which eventually came to be located at 1304 Second Avenue (today, part of the site of Benaroya Hall, Seattle's symphony hall), and started the Furuya Construction Company, mainly a labor contractor, which helped build the Great Northern Railway, the Milwaukee Road and the Oregon Short Line.