On a five-acre plot, on the edge of Carrington, North Dakota, Harry Hayashi created a little piece of Japan. The Rainbow Gardens were modeled after traditional Japanese gardens, featuring a stream, fish ponds, and waterfalls. The venue also featured a motel, music pavilion and restaurant. Popular with the locals, as well passing travelers, it was a great place for unique food, and great entertainment. It is rumored that the pavilion at Rainbow Gardens hosted such musical greats as Duke Ellington, Conway Twitty, Jimmy Dorsey, Tiny Hill, Wayne King, Blue Barron, Buddy Murrow and Louie Armstrong.
Hayashi was born in Japan, but at age 16 he set his sights on the United States. He worked his way across the ocean as a cabin boy on ocean steamers. On arrival, he lived and worked in Montana and the state of Washington before finding a job at a bakery in Carrington in 1921. Within a year he opened his own cafe. He hired Anna Firlus, the daughter of German immigrants, to work for him. It was a fateful meeting -- two years later, the couple married.
Hayashi was a successful and well-liked businessman. Neighbors described him as ambitious and imaginative. However, in 1942, this successful Japanese immigrant faced the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. The government seized his assets. Soon after, Rainbow Gardens closed.
On a Sunday morning, while Anna attended church, Hayashi was taken from his home and sent to the Department of Justice enemy internment camp at Fort Lincoln, just south of Bismarck. Today, the site is home to the United Tribes Technical College, but between May 1943 and March 1946, the buildings housed over 4,000 German and Japanese “enemy aliens.”
Hayashi’s internment was difficult for Anna and Harry’s family. Anna and the five children had to find work, including labor in the fields shocking grain. Hayashi was released from the internment camp before the war ended, but was ordered to remain in Carrington. He reopened Rainbow Gardens in May of 1945.
On this date in 1945, a B-29 Superfortress dropped the first atomic bomb ever used in warfare on the city of Hiroshima. The devastating event instantly killed 70,000 people and was followed three days later by the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, effectively ending the World War II.
After the war ended, Hayashi closed Rainbow Gardens, and opened a restaurant in Carrington named “Miami Grill.” In February of 1954 Hayashi died from complications from an accident at the restaurant. A few days after his passing, Harry Hayashi received a letter from the United States Government. It was a certificate proving his readiness to become a United States citizen.
Dakota Datebook by Maria Witham
Sources:
http://gaic.info/internment-camps/u-s-department-of-justice-internment-facilities/fort-lincoln-bismarck-north-dakota/#lightbox[group-33952]/0/
http://www.grandforksherald.com/news/4083854-carrington-man-only-japanese-person-north-dakota-detained-during-wwii
http://www.digitalhorizonsonline.org/digital/collection/uw-ndshs/id/10023/
http://carringtonnews.blogspot.com/2016/11/harry-hayashis-rainbow-gardens.html
http://www.hngnews.com/waunakee_tribune/community/arts_and_entertainment/article_9206a6ec-0414-11e7-aa5e-dfcaec17a4a0.html
