Generations: Kemper Freeman, JR. and the Freeman Family

From pre-Revolutionary America through civil and world wars, as well as economic ups and downs, the Freeman family has been there. Legh Freeman, a peripatetic journalist and Civil War veteran, chronicled the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad. His son Miller was a trade-magazine publisher and a civic leader. He became a key figure in building the Lake Washington Ship Canal and the I-90 floating bridge, and the subsequent development of the east side of Lake Washington. Miller's son Kemper developed Bellevue Square out of a strawberry field and became a pioneer in the shopping center industry. Biographer Robert Spector's interest was in Kemper Freeman Jr., who witnessed the evolution of Bellevue from rural to suburban to urban and has had a profound impact on virtually every aspect - retail, culture, transportation, land use, and philanthropy - of his beloved city.