Seattle Community Gardening History Project

Our church was Mount Virgin church. We had several Italian grocery stores at Atlantic Street, Italian pharmacy, Italian barbershop. The residents were mainly east and west of Rainier Avenue going all the way up to Beacon Hill. As far south as – oh, a little south of McClellan Street. We had the ballpark. We had the Vacca Brothers farm. And we had the Italian language school here, at Atlantic Street. Thus did baker and businessman Remo Borracchini describe the neighborhood of Seattle’s North Rainier Valley that came to be called Garlic Gulch due to the large number of Italian families settled there. A Garlic Gulch home and garden. Patricelli family. Mary Grace Briglio Patricelli and Michael Patricelli. Courtesy Rainier Valley Historical Society.  Little Italy The main wave of Italian immigrants to Washington’s “shores” came at the turn of the 19th century. Many came to work in the coal mines in South King County; others were farmers who set up truck farms in the Rainier and Duwamish...

"Gulch" =  a deep or precipitous cleft  :  RAVINE  (Merriam-Webster) Two women in Garlic Gulch, undated. Courtesy Rainier Valley Historical Society (RVHS) The term "Garlic Gulch" is thrown around often to describe the large Italian community that nestled at the north end of the Rainier Valley from the early 1900s until the 1960s and perhaps beyond. But where did the term come from and how was it received? I offer no concrete answers, but a lot of theories and speculation. Did it all start with Big John Croce? I [wonder] if I originated that term, because the reason that it got famous was I had this buddy, a little tiny guy that got drafted in the army. He went to Korea, right? That's a buddy of mine. So when he comes back from Korea the paper, the PI, said we have a veteran Italian kid immigrant returning to Garlic Gulch, his home and so on. And that's where we became famous. (John Croce RVHS Oral History) Croce, founder o...