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Built as a hotel for working people and recent (particularly Asian) immigrants to Seattle, WA; the Panama Hotel operated a traditional Japanese bathhouse (sento) in its basement; though the hotel closed in 1950, the sento still exists, and is the only one remaining in the U.S.; the hotel became a storehouse during the internment of Japanese-Americans during WW II; the owner at that time, Takashi Hori, retained the items, many of which were never recovered by their original owners; Hori operated the hotel for 45 year, except for a three-year stretch during which he was held at the Minidoka Internment Camp in Idaho; in 1986, a new owner, Jan Johnson, purchased the Panama Hotel, and discovered this trove of 37 trunks; since her discovery, the contents of the trunks have been exhibited at Ellis Island Immigration Museum, New York, NY, the Japanese American National Museum in downtown Los Angeles, CA, and the William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum in Atlanta, GA; today, many of these stored items are displayed in the Panama Hotel Tea House;

A tea house was opened at the hotel in 2001; its construction began in 1997;

PCAD id: 5358