page_title: Seattle Dojo
section_title: Establishment of the Seattle Dojo
hierarchical_section_title: Seattle Dojo / Establishment of the Seattle Dojo
caption_attribution_description: English: Yoshiaki Yamashita The digital copy uploaded here was made from an original photograph currently in the collection of the uploader (Joseph Svinth). The photo in the Svinth collection was brought to the USA from Japan in 1935, and was obtained by Svinth in 1999. The first known publication of any version of this photo of which the uploader is aware is "Histoire du Judo", Revue Judo Kodokan, v. XII:5, November 1962.
context_page_description: The Seattle Dojo is located at 1510 S. Washington in the Squire Park neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. It is the oldest judo dojo in the continental United States, having been founded sometime before 1907 in what is today the International District.
context_section_description: On October 17, 1903, a Kodokan leader named Yoshitsugu Yamashita gave demonstrations of judo at the Seattle Theatre. Witnesses included prominent local businessmen and journalists. This success inspired Seattle's Japanese immigrant community to organize its own judo dojo. The pioneer of the Seattle Dojo appears to have been Iitaro Kono (or Kano), a Kodokan judo black belt who arrived in Seattle on May 20, 1903. He remained in Seattle until at least September 18, 1909, when he participated in a judo demonstration for the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition. During the 1910s, Kono also started judo clubs in Spokane and Chicago.
  The man who made Seattle Dojo famous, however, was professional wrestler Tokugoro Ito, who made the club his headquarters during his stay in Seattle (1907–1911). Other wrestlers associated with Seattle Dojo included Eitaro Suzuki, who wrestled for Japan during the 1932 Olympics, and Kaimon Kudo, a popular professional wrestler of the 1930s and 1940s.
caption: Yoshitsugu Yamashita
exif: {}