That fateful lunch in 1903 eventually led E.N. Steele into the oyster business. A friend and client of Steele's died in 1905, leaving Steele as administrator over his friend's oyster business. Eventually, Steele purchased this Oyster Bay property, rich with Olympia oysters, which is still in the family today.

He divided his time in the early years between his fledgling oyster business and a busy law practice which included some of the state's first court battles over Indian treaty rights. Steele represented many local tribal members in his practice, usually winning them the rights to hunt and fish as the 1854 treaty had promised.

Steele was friends with business associates J. Emy Tsukimoto and Joe Miyagi, both Japanese, when Washington passed a 1921 law outlawing land ownership by aliens. This led to the purchase of Tsukimoto and Miyagi's oyster grounds in Samish Bay and to a cooperative venture with them that resulted in the first successful transplanting of Japanese oysters to northwest waters.

E.N. Steele and his brother Charles set about converting consumers to the gustatory pleasures of the newly transplanted Japanese oyster, marketed as the "Rock Point" oyster. They built a special truck for hauling and showing the oysters and traveled all over the West Coast and as far east as Salt Lake City, offering tastings at restaurants and groceries. Slowly but surely they won a loyal following.

E.N. Steele was at the helm of a movement of oyster growers to set up an organization to grapple with issues of price wars, sizing standards, and other challenges facing growers. In August of 1930, at the first meeting of this fledgling organization, the Japanese oyster was officially dubbed the "Pacific" oyster, and the "North Pacific Oyster Growers Association," was officially formed. Four years later, in 1934, the name was changed to what we have today, the Pacific Coast Oyster Growers Association.

Eleven years before this, and about the time E.N. Steele was first engaging in the importation of Japanese seed, Dick Steele, made his entrance into the world. Born in 1923, Dick was destined to carry on the legacy his father began. He grew up on Oyster Bay, eating, breathing, and sleeping the oyster business.

Dick was attending college in Tacoma when World War II broke out. He joined the Army. After serving with a unit in Europe, Dick had been brought back to the U.S. to train a special unit for the invasion of Japan when the bomb was dropped on Japan and the war ended.

The oyster business had suffered during the way due to the inability to purchase seed from the Japanese. When Dick had come home on furlough during the war, he had gone on a scouting mission to find oyster growing areas where spat were setting naturally. His search led him to property at the head of Dabob Bay on Washington's Hood Canal which his father purchased.

When Dick returned home in November 1945, he went to work full time in the family business, dividing his time between Rock Point in Samish, purchased more than 20 years before, and the newly acquired Dabob.

In 1946 the natural set in Dabob met expectations, and they started culching on floating racks. In addition to their own tidelands, they leased state land in Dabob Bay, extending their floating system, and began selling seed oysters to other growers.

Much has changed since these early days. Dick illustrates this with one of the stories he remembers his father telling about travel between Willapa and Olympia in the early 1900's. Cars could only travel at 10-15 miles an hour with narrow dirt roads barely wide enough for a single car.

Travel at night was a real challenge. The carbide headlights using in those days were not very bright, and the only way they could tell they were driving down the middle of the road was the sound of the tree branches slapping equally over the left and right sides of the car. They knew they were too far off on the right side if the left side slapping stopped. Dick tells of one prominent state legislator traveling the road between Grays Harbor and Olympia who disappeared, never to be seen again.

While technology has advanced, other changes are not so welcome. Taxes have steadily gone up, and with the increasing trend of million dollar homes being built on the shoreline, Dick notes taxes are bound to continue increasing. Oyster drills infest Dabob Bay now, reducing survival of seed and adult oysters. Clam production is up, however. Clams were not a particularly marketable commodity back when the Dabab property was purchased. However, careful farming and enhancement practices have increased the production of Manilla clams, ironically also an alien invader.

At the time of this writing, Dick and his wife Tee live in a beautiful home overlooking pristine and picturesque Dabob Bay. His sons, David and Earl, have take over much of the business, but Dick is still involved in many of the day-to-day operations. His sisters, Peggy Ernest, and Bonny Lindsey are also life-long oysterfolk. Peggy owns Salty Dog Seafood and Bonny runs her farm in conjunction with the Brenners, another long-time oyster family.

One of the true treasures of not just the Steele family, but Washington state and the entire Pacific coast oyster industry, is E.N Steele's journal "Letters from Grandpa." These letters, written to his grandchildren over a 20 year period, trace his childhood in Iowa to his trek to Washington and all of the rich years that proceeded. Dick has donated a copy of this historical gem to the PCOGA executive office, and it is available to anyone who wishes to explore some of the early days of Washington and the oyster industry.