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Isamu "Sam" Taguchi
Juneau resident Isamu "Sam" Taguchi, 77, died Dec. 20, 1995 in
Juneau.
His City Café was an important gathering place for generations of local
politicians, tradesmen and fishermen.
Taguchi came from Seattle in 1935 to work in a
fish cannery at Shearwater Bay on Kodiak Island before coming in the late 1930s to Juneau,
where he worked at the Juneau Laundry.
In Juneau when the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred,
Taguchi was asked to help with the evacuation of Japanese Americans to an assembly camp in
Puyallup, Wash. He later was reunited with his family at the Minidoka Camp in Hunt, Idaho.
He then moved to Minnesota.
Returning to Juneau in 1949, he was offered a partnership in
the City Café, eventually assuming full ownership. The restaurant moved to its present
location around the time the downtown ferry terminal was built.
In 1982 Taguchi sold the
business, later opening "Taguchi's Fine Chow" with his brother, Gim. He retired several
years ago.
Taguchi was a lifelong sports enthusiast, his family wrote. At age 10, he
appeared on two Seattle Times sports-quiz radio shows, in which he placed first both times.
While living in Chicago during the 1940s, he organized and coached the Chicago Huskies
basketball team, made up of former Seattleites. Taguchi also sponsored a successful
Juneau basketball team, the City Café, in the '50s. He also was an avid bowler and
sponsored a City Café bowling team.
During the 1960s, Gov. Bill Egan appointed Taguchi
as Alaska's Commissioner of Athletics.
Source: Juneau Empire
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