Redmond Historical Society gets grant to research area poultry history

Redmond, Washington, August 10, 2015: The Redmond Historical Society has received a Heritage Project grant from 4Culture of King County—totaling nearly $7,000—to help research and document the history of the chicken farm industry in Redmond, which goes as far back as the 1920s. The effort will culminate in a presentation to the community about the once-prevalent poultry business.

According to the grant narrative, “poultry, especially egg producing, was once big business in our state. It is the story of immigrants, family farms, co-operative marketing associations, exports, and internationally recognized scientific breeding.” Today there is not much physical evidence of this era in Redmond’s history—and with the exception of the Morelli farm, “there is scant written information.”

The project will be implemented in phases. Initially, Society volunteers will be collecting first-hand accounts from surviving family members who were part of this era in Redmond history. Pierre Bruneau, 85, whose parents moved to Redmond in the mid-1940s and started Skyline Poultry Ranch on land that is in today’s North Redmond neighborhood, is one such example. The research will also seek to collect information on the Redmond activities of Heisdorf & Nelson, an internationally known poultry breeding business that at one time had its headquarters and a hatchery in the area of today’s Microsoft campus. The interviews will be handed off to a historian who will utilize secondary sources to identify some of the earlier farms and provide the broader, historical context of the larger forces that impacted the development and decline of the poultry industry in the Redmond area.

The findings of the research are targeted to be presented as part of the Redmond Historical Society’s Saturday Speaker Series in the fall of 2016.