'Small town' growing out of its shady image

By JACK HOPKINS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

The Duwamish people had a name for the wooded, riverside land just south of what is now Seattle.

The tribe called it Tuck-wil-a -- "the land where hazelnuts grow."

The name endured, despite a slight change in spelling. But few of the hazelnut trees have survived.

Tukwila is better known today for Southcenter Mall and the rapid development that has changed the face of this once-agricultural community. That and its reputation for having one of the seediest, crime-ridden areas of Pacific Highway South, commonly known as Highway 99.

But there is a lot more to the community than that.

Betty Gully, who has lived in Tukwila for more than 50 years, says the community has retained much of its small-town feeling despite having several major highways that funnel thousands of motorists through the city and two neighboring airports that bring hundreds of planes flying overhead every day.

"You could pick us up -- lock, stock and barrel -- and drop us in Montana and we'd only miss a beat or two," Gully says.

Take a turn off the traffic-clogged main streets and you'll find nice old homes on tree-lined streets, numerous parks, the sound of frogs croaking in swampy areas near the Green River and all the other things that give a community its heart and soul.

"The thing I love about Tukwila is that we are only 15 minutes from downtown Seattle, but you'd never know it," says Mary Fertakis, school board member and former secretary-treasurer of the Duwamish Improvement Club.

"Our neighborhood is one of those well-kept secrets," says Fertakis, who lives in the Allentown-Duwamish area. "I wake up to the sound of a rooster a couple of blocks away. And we live on the river so we can watch the fish jump and look at the beaver and heron.

"I grew up in Seattle and I didn't know this neighborhood existed. And I think a lot of people who live here would like to keep it that way."

Gully says it is the people who make the difference in Tukwila, which is hardly recognizable today from the time when it was little more than a stagecoach stop on the line between Seattle and Auburn.

"People still care about each other and help each other here," says Gully. "You might not know all of your neighbors, but you make an effort to know some of them. And we all look out for each other and for the kids."

Increasingly, those "kids" are coming from foreign countries.

Continued:

• People come from all over the world to live here
• Commercial life and country living coexist ... for the most part