Photo and story by www.PhotoByVivian.com ~
Eto Park sits in the center of what was once called “Japantown” in San Luis Obispo. It is dedicated to the Eto Family, one of the developers of the Japantown Commercial Center which was a vibrant area until World War.
The park is located on Brook Street, which was once Eto Street but was stricken from maps in 1942 after Pearl Harbor. A proposal to restore the street name was turned down in the nineties, but the city comprised and named the park in honor of the Eto family.
Built in the 1920’s and 30’s, Japantown was on Higuera Street between French Street (which is now Madonna Road) and South Street. It included a barbershop, soda bottling company, a meat and fish market and two hotels. Close by on French Street was a Buddhist Church and Japanese school. The church was torn down in 1906 to make way for the freeway and a new church built near Avila Hot Springs.
Eto Park was dedicated on May 9, 2002. On one of the plaques in the park reads a poem, by Karen Nagano“The Garden,” that begins with the words; “A garden calls us, As it called our ancestors, As it calls our children, Yet unborn.”
