Reno Chinatown
Located across the Truckee River from the National Automobile Museum, the empty lot you will see was once home to a vibrant Chinese community. Reno’s Chinese Quarter (located on Lake and First streets ) began to take shape as the need for labor grew and fell throughout the 1850s and 60s with many Chinese working on the Transcontinental Railroad with many displaced laborers making this part of the Truckee Meadows home along with other nearby communities. With the discovery of The Comstock Lode, Chinese workers began turning up in larger numbers. Many worked as laundrymen, gardeners, servants, or cooks, because a resolution passed in 1859 forbade the Chinese from owning mining claims or working in underground mines in the Gold Hill District. Reno’s Chinese residents at the 1870s and 1880s never rising above 7% of the total population but continued to play a role in the community in the Chinese Quarter growing and functioning as an independent entity within Reno and many businesses catered to Chinese residents such as laundries, gambling and so on.
This unique emigrant community would also become the target of persecution in the following years. Several anti-Chinese groups were formed at this time including the local chapters of the Workingmen’s Party and the Order of the Caucasians. Both these organizations were labor groups that emerged as a result of the economic recession that came about in the aftermath of the American Civil War, the rise in labor unions in the U.S., and the growth of the Chinese population being used as cheap labor. Tensions would continue to grow with the Lung Chung & Company contract to construct the 33-mile Steamboat Ditch irrigation canal from Truckee into Reno.
The Workingmen had condemned the Truckee and Steamboat Springs Canal Project for employing Chinese labor. On Aug. 3, 1878, a fire blazed through the Chinese quarter, coincidentally, the “Nevada State Journal” reported that the Workingmen’s Party had held a meeting that same evening to discuss and adapt a series of resolutions on “the Chinese question.” The day after the destruction of the quarter the fire was reported as an unfortunate accident. The Workingmen denied arson allegations and called for the complete removal of Chinese residents from Reno within 48 hours. City officials feared that forced removal could result in bloodshed, so they instead allowed the Chinese to relocate away from downtown.
Fortunately, few incidents of violence or physical hostility occurred in Chinatown for over 20 years after the 1878 fire. Efforts to address concerns about the Chinese switched to legal action. After the successful boycott and expulsion of the Chinese from Truckee, California in 1886, renewed efforts in Reno to do the same got started. Between the 1880s and the early 1900s Reno’s Chinatown gradually eroded away due to changes in business practices, to fears of disease outbreaks with the community officially coming to an end in 1908 when a Washoe County Grand Jury ordered the razing of Chinatown a few local businesses were felt behind with the area being completely clear out by 1920.
Today the memory of the Truckee Meadows once vibrant Chinese community can still be seen if you know where to look. Nevada Historical Marker No. 29 located in Sparks’ Lillard Park, dedicated in 1964, celebrates Nevada’s centennial and salutes the contributions of Chinese pioneers with the final sentence, “Their contributions to the progress of the state in its first century will forever be remembered by all Nevadans.”
A Chinese Pagoda Pavilion was built in Reno’s Rancho San Rafael Park in 1984. Several notable members of the Chinese community promoted its construction, including Lai King Chew (of the Cosmo Club), and Henry Yup (of the Sun Café). Chew was an officer of the Reno Joss House Society when it disbanded, and its remaining treasury funded the pavilion’s construction. These markers serve as reminders of the Chinese culture that became an integral part of the Truckee Meadows today.
Image credit: Nevada Historical Society Date: ca. 1900
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