The trade was reported in the Post-Intelligencer in December 1934 when Japan makes a symbolic move of buying shells from the old arsenal at Fort Stevens on the Columbia River.
War is already on people s minds.
That month, Japan renounces a treaty restricting the size of its navy. But Japan is also a longtime trading partner, and the steel shipments continue. In July 1937, Japan invades China. The same month a Japanese group offers to landscape Seattle s Foster Island with five acres of cherry trees. The offer is not accepted, public sympathy is with China.