The historic Panama Hotel, designed by Sabro Ozasa - the first Japanese architect in Seattle and one of the earliest to practice in the country - was completed in 1910 and opened as a workingman’s hotel for single Japanese men coming to America seeking work. The hotel is located in the center of “NIHONMACHI” Japantown, Seattle (also known as the International District) and houses Hashidate-yu, the last intact Japanese-style public bathhouse in North America.

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When Executive order 9066 was issued and people of Japanese ancestry were forced to go to the internment camps, the Japanese community in NIHONMACHI brought their valuables to be stored in the basement of the hotel. Efforts have been made over the years to locate the owners and families of the trunks and the properties, quite a few were left unclaimed, and you can see them through the glass on the floor of the Panama Hotel Tea & Coffee, located on the first floor of the building.