Ohki Alley

Though soy sauce is ubiquitous today, it was not always a feature of American palates. By some accounts, the very first person to begin processing Midwestern soy crops into the delicious fermented condiment at an industrial scale started it all in a small corner of Columbia City. 

Shinzo Ohki was born in Japan, but after a circuitous and storied path from Kamakura to Seattle to Sitka, he set roots down in Whitley County, IN; he first appears in the historical record as a Columbia City High School graduate in 1907. Not long after graduating, he returned to Japan, where he gave lectures, learned about food manufacturing, and married his childhood "girl next door" crush. 

Shortly after, Ohki returned to the United States. Reportedly, he worked in cities like Chicago, handling imports from Japan from the American side. However it happened, soon enough he came home to Columbia City to establish his own company: the Oriental Shoyu Factory. Shoyu, the Japanese word for soy sauce, was called "Show-You" sauce by Midwesterners less adaptable to foreign dialects - a name Ohki took as a marketing strategy. The sauce was sold with recipe pamphlets to introduce it to a new continent on a large scale, and advertised with examples of the sorts of dishes it could create. 

It wasn't long before "Show-You" soy sauce, carried by Ohki's ingenious marketing and its own delicious flavor, hit its stride. At its peak, this small Columbia City company was selling 30,000 gallons of the salty sauce per year. Synergizing perfectly with the excellent soybean farming conditions of the Midwest, the Shoyu Factory was a beloved economic powerhouse for the city. 

Ohki's beloved status in the community and his economic importance were challenged by the outbreak of World War II and the resulting anti-Japanese sentiments, but the midwestern sense of community would prevail over racial division. The residents and employees of Columbia City rallied to protect their Japanese residents from internment in the War Relocation Centers. As told by a Whitley County Historical Museum member, the townsfolk "set up guards to protect his home and when the government tried to get the Ohkis to go to internment camps, the city fathers and businessman wrote letters saying this man is too important to our community."

In the 1960s, Ohki's retirement included selling his company to one of the newly-forming Japanese foods giants of the era. His brand was incorporated into what is today the La Choy brand. Ohki himself is remembered with this alleyway commemorating him, as well as a scholarship bearing his name at the high school he graduated.