In 1942, the Bellevue Strawberry Festival was cancelled. The primary reason was that some 90 percent of the agricultural workforce in the area was of Japanese ancestry, and all of these farmers and their families had been forcibly interned in camps following the start of World War II. The fair would not be revived for another 45 years. Following the expulsion of the ethnic Japanese farming community, a large quantity of farmland became available for development. This made way for the initial development of the Bellevue downtown area.