CHINESE AMERICANS� IN TRUCKEE�& SURROUNDING AREA
PROFESSOR EMERITA SUE FAWN CHUNG
OCTOBER 2023
China is larger than the US; Guangzhou in South
Most of the Chinese were farmers in SE China
Confucianism as a philosophy was community/family-centered.
The Confucian social status: 1) scholar-officials (leaders), 2) peasant-farmers (food providers, 3) artisans (incl. soldiers), and 4) merchants (self-interested)
Reasons to leave China: huge population growth, lack of arable land, tenancy, socio-economic troubles, banditry, poverty, high taxes, foreign invasions, flooding, famine, weak Manchu (nomadic, Qing D.) leadership.
Manchu soldiers could not defeat foreign armies; 1850s to 1900s peasant uprisings like the Taipings & Boxers; economic & social troubles; western imported products cheaper than domestic products like cloth & flour; denuded forests to make way for tea plantations for western trade.
Chinese went overseas for new economic opportunities & � the ability to send money home & gained new freedoms.
Rt: old section with watch-tower to protect village; Lf: new construction. Note pond for fresh fish.
In 1903 they sent $110 million; in 1937 they sent $517 million.
They built new homes, the country’s 2nd rail system, watchtowers, schools, hospitals, & other public buildings; sent American goods & ideas home.
Kaiping (Hoiping) Cangdong Village
Many Chinese went and came back to this village, which became prosperous due to overseas Chinese remittances.
Archaeological finds included American-made products. The villagers were introduced to new ideas, new building designs & materials, new foods.
Some western values & ideas, including “love” marriages, became influential.
Henry Yup (1918-2013) was born in Kaiping & came to US at age 12. His grandfather worked on the CP railroad. In 1937 he married in Kaiping, built a duplex for his wife and daughter on one side & his brother & his family on the other. He served in WWII and brought his wife & daughter to Reno through the 1943 Repeal of Chinese Exclusion. Later he owned several restaurants in the Reno area, was active in the community, and was featured in the Reno phone directory.�
When his wife & daughter arrived in Reno, he fought to build them a large home in a segregated area in Reno, where he raised all 10 children, all college graduates.
Most Chinese emigrated from Guangdong and, in smaller numbers, from Fujian province in south-eastern China to the American west.
Boat travel took 30-60 days and cost $40-50 to US, $20-$30 back to China in the 1850s-60s. �The Pacific Mail Steamship Co. transported the majority of Chinese to the U.S. in the late 19th cent. Leland Stanford, President, PMSC.
Many sailed on junks across the Pacific – taking 3-6 months on average – with relatives and friends. This was the least expensive but most dangerous way to make the crossing. The junks had distinctive “county” marks so one could dock near fellow regionals in chain migrations to the West Coast.��Photograph: Ella Quan, reproduction of 19th century junk by John Muir, NPS, docked at the San Francisco Marina now.
San �Francisco�Bay 1851
The 1849 California gold rush brought�many to the US West; from there they entered NV, OR, WA.��1860 Chinese man with portable long tom on a shoulder pole. Nevada.
Some Chinese miners worked with other ethnic groups and a few became co-owners on claims with a Euro-American because they could not file original claims. In 1852 they constituted 25% of CA’s miners.
Some Chinese worked in their own groups of 25-30 (in a group with a headman (laoban) and a cook. They worked on placer mining sites; a few could do hard rock mining (needed expensive equipment). They joined tongs, such as the Chee Kong Tong (Chinese Freemasons) for protection in relatively isolated places.
Very few had wives living with them because of the 1875 Page Law.
Nevada County Transcript:
The big influx was due to the building of the CPRR, 1864-1869, reaching Lake’s Crossing (Reno) in 1868. 90% of the 15,000-20,000 railroad workers were Chinese but at Reno, only 5,000 were retained to cross Nevada’s desert int Utah. The difficult part – crossing the Sierra Nevada – was finished. Many of the released workers cut lumber in the Tahoe region or worked on the Virginia & Truckee Railroad and other lines or settled in towns along the railroad line, including Truckee, or returned to San Francisco or China.�
In Jan. 1864, 21 Chinese were hired to work on the CPRR, then another 50 were added, and soon the numbers were in the thousands. Within a month they became known for their hard work & reliability.
Chinese workers did what was widely considered at the time to be impossible. They endured scorching summer heat in the high altitudes, dirt and choking dust, smoke, and fumes from the constant use of explosives. They survived in isolation, desiccating winds and thin air, winter blizzards and freezing temperatures, as well as the ever-present dangers of accidental explosions, falling trees, snow slides, avalanches, cave-ins, illness, broken limbs, and plain exhaustion — all to realize the government’s great ambition of uniting the American continent with a central artery. These workers, in no short order, helped solidify the westward future of the United States.”
Professor Gordon H. Chang, Stanford University
Charles Crocker (1822-1888), one of the Big 4, after dissatisfaction with Irish workers on the Central Pacific RR, hired 21, then 50 Chinese from the Dutch Flat/Auburn area in 1864, & soon had 80-90% (12-20,000) of his crew Chinese, many recruited from China.
Discrimination on trains: After 1869 when the first trans-continental line was completed, certain towns like Verdi &Tonopah would not allow the Chinese to disembark at the station. Chinese rode in the back of the train, but some could ride for free if they had worked on its construction.
Crocker owned property in Truckee and gradually sold parcels to some of the Chinese in the area.
James H. Strobridge (1827-1921), CPRR supervisor
After working with the Chinese for a month, Strobridge praised their work & said they could do all the different jobs (skilled & unskilled).
Myth: Strobridge opposed hiring the Chinese when Charles Crocker (General Supervisor, 1 of the Big 4) proposed hiring 50 of them. He had worked with Chinese in the 1850s on the San Francisco-San Jose line & on his farm. Later, after briefly working on the Southern Pacific Railroad, he told Crocker that he would come out of retirement if Crocker would bring him 8,000 Chinese to do the construction work. Crocker agreed.
In 1868 the Chinese began to arrive and settle in Truckee as the 4,000 Chinese crew of the CPRR worked in the area. After reaching present-day Reno, the CPRR retained 5,000 to work across Nevada. Many of the released workers came to Truckee when the VTRR construction began in 1868/9 and then the Carson & Colorado (1880) under Henry Yerington & Duane Bliss.
Work-men went to where the job was & moved a lot making big & small rail lines.
Truckee was an important railroad division point for the Central Pacific and had a woodshed for wood fuel, a coal shed (with a Catholic Church next to it) and a roundhouse.
Until the 1890s, it was common to see Chinese workers operating a restaurant for the crews & passengers (24 hrs/day), work as maintenance men in the roundhouse, cut and stack cord wood & wood coal for the fuel, and perform duties as section men (in charge of certain portion of the line). After the 1882 & 1892 Chinese Exclusion Acts, other minorities were often hired.
While working for the railroads, the Chinese lived in tents, boxcars, easily movable wooden cabins, in CPR owned hotels/boarding houses, & on leased land.
May 10, 1869: Golden Spike Ceremony joining the CPRR & UPRR at Promontory, Utah. Myth: No Chinese present. Truth: three Chinese men there.
Andrew
Russell’s
iconic
photo -- ‘”EAST MEETS WEST”
5/10/69
1870 Census listed 407 Chinese in Truckee, a town of 1,467 with 731 dwellings. The early Chinese residents included 11 merchants (including Fong Lee), woodcutters, 4 doctors, laundrymen, and 22 prostitutes. Chinatown (bottom) had laundries, tea stores, peanut stands, barber shops, a bath house, and other businesses.
Carson City’s Chinatown’s buildings probably looked similar to the ones in Truckee’s Chinatown in the late 19th century.
Chinatown probably looked like
Truckee’s at this time
From the Assessor’s Office, there were at least 28 Chinese men who owned property in & around Truckee, primarily on Main St. This includes merchant Fong Lee, who was a community leader. Other Chinese were listed. Sisson, Wallace & Co., a major Chinese labor contractor, Sisson, Egbert & Co., stable & freighters, the Central Pacific Railroad, and Charles Crocker, one of the Big 4 & CPRR superintendent, also owned property in Truckee & NV County.
Partial list of Nevada County Assessor’s Office.
Sisson, Wallace & Co. was owned by Albert Sisson (d. 1888) & William H. Wallace (d.1881). In 1881 the firm became Sisson, [Clark] Crocker [younger brother of Charles, d. 1890] & Co. They were a Wells Fargo agent. Their contracted Chinese workers had to buy all their provisions, imported tea & Chinese products, local pork, duck, chicken, etc., & equipment from the company stores, many of which were along the railroad tracks. They also provided boarding houses, hotels (China Hotel), restaurants & laundries.
Truckee’s Sisson, Wallace, & Co., which had stores along the 1st Transcontinental line, advertised its sale of goods in the Reno Evening Gazette (March 28, 1876). They featured fancy imported teas & domestic pork products (ham, etc.). SWC partnered with others to open, for example, pork processing plants (Chinese diet favored pork), & were into a variety of industries.
Merchants were the leaders of the community & could read/write everyday Chinese but not the Chinese classics (the mark of a literate man).
Merchant Sam Gibson (Nong Chong Yee) had his store in Carson City and lumbermen were regular customers. He was friends with Henry Yerington & Duane L. Bliss, who attended the “red egg” celebration for his first son, King Yee.
Tuscarora, Nevada Merchant Ah Lee Lake dressed in a rich silk and ermine jacket. He could read & write English & was a community leader. His wife lived in San Francisco, which was a “safe” town for the Chinese families. He interacted with many Euro-Americans.
The Fong Lee store (owner known as Fong Lee) sold merchandise & groceries. It was located near Sisson, Wallace & Company’s store and its China Hotel (boarding house for Chinese railroad workers).
When his store (on Front & 2nd) was partially destroyed by fire in 1872, he was fortunate that only that part was made of wood because the main building was of brick like Sisson, Wallace’s store. Chinese were not eligible to be insured. When he rebuilt, the entire store was brick. In 1878 the anti-Chinese committee wanted China-town moved and he refused. At the meeting he said he would only do it if they paid him $10,000. He stayed in his location. Others bought land in the new location from D. H. Haskell, agent for the Central Pacific Railroad.
Fong Lee wore a diamond ring on his hand and had two bodyguards, Ah One, a noted robber who had served a jail term and a “rascal” and Charley Sing, a ”well-known entrepreneur and fighting man” – both were driven out by the 601 Committee in 1878. Fong Lee had hired them for protection from being robbed & from the anti-Chinese group because he was vocal against moving Chinatown to its new location across the Truckee River.
San Francisco Chronicle (February 3, 1887): “The most important lumber district is in the Truckee basin…where numerous mills of large capacity are engaged in supplying the demands of various parts of the coast.” The reporter predicted the denuding the forests that occurred by the 1890s.
The rich forests in the area brought lumbermen & sawmills for the railroads (incl. feeder lines to the CPRR) & mines. Ice production also thrived & helped Truckee grow.
The Chinese cut, chopped, flumed & moved by freighting or waterways the logs for companies such as the Sierra NV Wood & Lumber Company
The Hobart Mills (later Sierra Wood & Lumber Co.) was one of large logging companies using Chinese labor.
Clear Creek Flume (Hobart’s?/Carson Tahoe Lumber & Flume) with Chinese flume tender’s cabin at the right ended in present-day NV State RR Museum, Carson City.
Verdi Lumber Company’s pond (probably built by Chinese) and mill. Chinese workers moved the logs into the waterway to reach the pond.
Although the anti-Chinese movements began in the 1850s with miners forbidding the Chinese from staking mining claims, the completion of the transcontinental railroad (1869) led to more discrimination & violent attacks, culminating in the national Chinese Exclusion Acts (1882-1924) and other discriminatory legislation.
Popular media, news-papers, labor unions & politicians rallied crowds against the Chinese in the 1870s-1890s, the height of anti-Chinese violence.�
In 1868-1870 pioneer lumberman Elle Ellen (b. 1823) of the Truckee Lumber Co., employed many Chinese loggers/wood-cutters (same salary as other ethnic lumbermen), owned steam sawmills cutting 50,000 ft of lumber daily & large wood ranches. He paid his loaders $2.50/ day. He had a Chinese cook. He was a “last hold-out” against the anti-Chinese club �members who wanted him to fire all of his Chinese� workers in 1886.
The community leaders of Truckee included George Schaffer, Warren & George Richardson, Edward Brickell, William Kruger, Elle Ellen, and Oliver Lonkey.
Chinese cooks (right top) were important in logging camps because if the food was good, the lumbermen tended to stay longer working in that wood camp.
The old jailhouse (brick building) is on the site of Truckee’s first Chinatown (most of the lots on land leased from Sisson) on Spring and Jibboom (aka E. Main). Originally there were 16 wooden shops and homes in this location. The May 1875 fire destroyed 40 Chinese buildings & 4 houses & ca. 30 hogs, losses totaling $60,000. The Chinese could not buy insurance. An attempt was made to move China-town to the south side of the Truckee River, but the anti-Chinese group failed as the residents moved back to the original site.
Truckee Republican newspaper owner Charles Fayette McGlashan wrote in 1875: “Truckee’s bathhouse is carried on by a celestial named Wah Lee, but he manages the establishment in true American style. Lovers of cleanliness (this includes everybody) will be delighted with the arrangement of this bathing establishment if they give Wah Lee a call.
This bathhouse in Calico, CA probably resembled the one in Truckee’s first Chinatown.
Destroying Chinatowns: In 1869 Unionville, NV anti-Chinese men burned Chinatown. In 1903 labor unions burned Reno’s Chinatown and left the residents in the winter cold & snow (left). Fire destroyed Truckee’s Chinatown in 1871, 1873, 1875, 1878, 1881 & 1882. Chinatown was eventually relocated south of the river, then disappeared.
Trout Creek Outrage, 1876: 2 Chinese cabins were set on fire by 7 members of the Truckee Caucasian League, who then fired on the 6 fleeing Chinese, killing 1 & wounding 1. Like other cases of the time, the 7 men were found not guilty of arson and murder. By law the Chinese could not testify against Euro-Americans, so there were no witnesses.
Court house in Nevada City, 1866 (left)
Typical Chinese cabin in the woods at this time in California mountains.
Site of Chinatown on the south side of the Truckee river from 1878 to ca. 1890. 700 Chinese settled there. The Chinese herbalist store was at the right (with the pitched roof), built in 1878 in the 2nd Chinatown; it has been privately restored.
1879 Sanborn Map of�Truckee�after move south of the Truckee River. ��Yellow= Chinese stores.
The new Chinatown
Among the 700 Chinese residents (number varies because of inaccurate census reporting), there were 11 merchants/grocers with a combined wealth of $6,500 of real property & $10,200 of personal property. Fong Lee (b. 1835)was the richest, followed by Sing Hong (b. 1842), Lee Sing (b. 1830), and Ah Hugh (b. 1839). Many buildings were on land leased from Charles Crocker. Fong Lee paid $10,000 to have his new store built with bricks, following the example of Sisson, Crocker & Company. Charles Crocker & Frederick Burckhalter (banker, merchant) were among those who sold lots on Main Street to several Chinese.
There also were 4 doctors, 2 miners, 18 laundrymen, 9 cooks, 1 farm hand, 76 railroad workers, 14 probable railroad workers, 3 gardeners, 1 jeweler, 1 scavenger, 2 peddlers, 1 butcher, 1 maid, 2 housewives, 1 3-month-old child (named Colfax), 3 opium den owners, 22 prostitutes, 2 gamblers, 3 unknown occupations, & 32 laborers.
The Hop Who Company employed woodcutters, who owned personal property.
The railroad workers helped build the narrow-gauge lines used by the lumber company and others to connect with the transcontinental railroad.
1903 San Francisco herb pharmacy. Many customers were Americans. Chinese herbs, such as the popular PoChai for diarrhea, stomach aches, etc. were found in mining camps.
Eureka Method (Feb. 7, 1885): In 1880 the population of the Chinese in Eureka was ca. 96 but more moved in and established a Chinatown on 4th & E Streets. Many were loggers. 2 rival Chinese gangs had a shoot-out and Councilman David Kendall was killed. 600 Euro-Americans met & evicted the 310-480 Chinese residents. They shipped them to San Francisco. Hanging gallows were erected for those who did not leave. This was a model for Chinese expulsions elsewhere.
Eureka, CA’s Chinatown 1885
Chinese laundy & laundryman
Expelling the Chinese intensifies:
Rock Springs, WY (Sept. 2, 1885):
150 Euro-American coal miners for the Union Pacific, many members of the Knights of Labor, attacked their 300-700 Chinese co-workers and killed 28+, wounded 15, drove several hundred out of town, destroyed 75 homes, and damaged Chinese property in the against the Chinese. This was the bloodiest racially motivated massacre . 40% of the Chinese were in the Liu (spelled Leo on the books) clan from Taishan. The members of the mob who were arrested were found “not guilty.” The Chinese government asked for indemnity and the U.S. paid $147,748, which covered very little of the property losses and no money was given for the relatives of the deceased or wounded.
Tacoma, WA method (Nov. 3, 1885):
500 anti-Chinese citizens visited homes & businesses of Chinese & their supporters. Chinese had to leave on train or wagon to Portland. Several days later, Chinatown was torched. Those few Americans who were arrested were found “not guilty,” which was the situation in all of the other expulsions.
Anti-Chinese movement reaches new heights
San Francisco Daily Alta, February 5, 1886
Truckee Method (1886): Although used earlier elsewhere, the method of driving out the Chinese by “peaceful, orderly, & lawful methods” (destroying property, expelling the Chinese physically, boycotting Chinese businesses & firms employing Chinese, etc.) were made widespread by the Caucasian League in Truckee and publicized by Charles McGlashan (1847-1931)’s Truckee Republican.
Charles McGlashan
Among the last hold outs of the boycott were Sisson, Crocker & Co. and Elle Ellen. The pressure to fire all Chinese employees was tremendous. The Truckee Method worked and all were expelled; later, according to the census, only two men returned.
This was part of a large anti-Chinese movement that occurred in 40 towns in California, including Auburn, Napa, Nevada City, Oakland, Pasadena, San Jose, and Tulare, & cities like Seattle, Tacoma, WA & Portland, OR, drive out the Chinese from their communities – The Chinese seldom or never got any reparations/indemnities in these places.
What happened to the Chinese of Truckee?
Oroville had a prosperous Chinatown featuring this Temple with imperial artifacts in its museum; did the Chinese move there?
Did Fong Lee go to Oroville?
San Francisco Bulletin, August 1, 1888
In Oroville, California the brick store of Fong Lee was damaged by fire with a partial loss totaling $500, thanks to the prompt work of the fire fighters.
Was this Truckee’s Fong Lee?
1890 rare photo of Chinese wood workers in the Tahoe area. Note the western style clothing of the men.
Inspired by the Truckee Method, 30-50 labor union members in Tonopah, NV drove the Chinese out in September 1903, resulting in the death of 66 year-old Chong Bing Long, a laundryman who had lived in the US for 30 years, after being hit on the head and left in the hot desert. The union members arrested were found not guilty and released. Some of the Chinese returned to Tonopah afterwards.
. Chong Bing Long’s laundry
Mrs. Billy (Min Chung) Ford & 2 sons were protected by Euro-Ameri-can friends
The Chinese fought back as 53 sued the City of Eureka: Wing Hing v. Eureka.
Famous San Francisco attorney Thomas Riordan lost the case for reparations, but at least one Chinese, Charlie Moon, who worked on Tom Bair’s ranch, remained – protected by Bair. When Bair and his wife died, Charlie raised their children, married a Native Chilula woman named Minnie Tom and had children, and their descendants, including great-great-great-granddaughter Yolanda Latham, still live in the Eureka area.
Expulsion Survivors & Their Descendants
Below: Charlie Moon of Eureka was protected by the Blair family in 1885 just as the Billy Ford Family (previous slide) was protected by Jim Butler and many of the citizens of Tonopah in 1903. These kinds of stories did not make the newspapers.
Gardenia Leo (1951-2018) was part of the Leo/Liu clan of Rock Springs, Wyoming’s Massacre. Her clan constituted 40% of the Union Pacific Railroad’s employees in the coal mines. The State Department paid a huge indemnity for those injured in the massacre & the descendants of surviving clan members remained there to this day.
Land ownership: The Chinese could and did own forest land in NV but in CA under the 1879 rev. CA Constitution Chinese could not.
In 1883 the NV Court allowed Fook Ling (Fook Ling/Ah Lay v. C.S. Preble, NV Surveyor) and other Chinese who were resident aliens to own land. An 1880 federal grant offering non-mineral public lands for $1.25/acre was the basis for the suit. Immediately after the decision was announced, three other Chinese men purchased forest land in the Truckee-Tahoe region.
Fuel wood was important: Cord wood: 4’ high 8’ long, 4’ deep. Used to fuel mines, trains, homes, etc.
1909 Yosemite chef Tie Sing cuts cord wood for the stove (right).
Stacks of cord wood cut by Chinese over 100 years old (recent photo) is a typical landscape in the forests of Tahoe.
18th century woodblock print on how to make wood charcoal (based on 17th c. BC China) was reproduced in the Truckee area.
In 2000 Dr. Susan Lindstrom found ca. 150-300 Chinese charcoal kilns in Old Greenwood, near Truckee from the pre-1876 period; only one was preserved. Mines & railroad companies & homes used the lightweight wood charcoal for fuel.
ARCHAEOLOGICAL FINDS help us learn about the Chinese experience but until recently archaeologists did not factor in American goods.
Right: cord wood in Tahoe area; wok
Left top to bottom:
Opium tins, wood charcoal from Hobart Mill area; fragments of pottery (bowls, cups)
Chinese American leaders had to be aware of� immigration laws, esp. 1882, 1892, 1902, & 1924 Acts.
Repeal 1943
1882 Exclusion Act Passed (rt).
1885 $50 head tax charged.
1892 Stricter enforcement and CR required.
1902 Exclusion made permanent.
1924 Door closed with quota system
Between 1880 and 1890 the Chinese population had reached its peak and began its rapid decline due to restrictive immigration laws. In the western logging industry, mechanization replaced the need for manpower & after 1905 the per capita consumption of wood declined with the introduction of new building materials.
Foreign population in California, 1850-70
Chinese population in U.S.
1860 to 1930
Citizens�1860 34,933�1870 63,199�1880 105,465�1890 107,488�1900 89,863* 9,010�1910 71,531* 14,935�1920 61,639* 18,532�1930 74.954* 30,868��*these figures differ in different counts; citizens counted 1900+
THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS OF THE COUNTY OF NEVADA:
RESOLUTION DESIGNATING A PLAQUE HONORING CHINESE RAILROAD WORKERS IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE NEVADA COUNTY NARROW GAUGE RAILROAD LOCATED AT THE SITE OF THE FORMER NEVADA CITY TERMINUS OF THE RAILROAD, ALSO KNOWN AS CLAMPERS SQUARE, LOCATED ON RAILROAD AVENUE NEAR THE INTERSECTION OF SACRAMENTO STREET IN NEVADA CITY AS NEVADA COUNTY HISTORICAL LANDMARK NEV 22-01
Adopted March 22, 2022
Special thanks to the following:
Truckee-Donner, California, and Nevada Historical Societies, including Chaun Mortier and Jeremy Lin
The Sierra Sun, Reno Gazette, New York Times, Los Angeles Times & others
Special Collection libraries at the University of Nevada, Reno and Las Vegas, University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University, and others
The Library of Congress, National Archives & Records Administration, and other governmental bodies
Scholars including Dr. Roland Hsu & Calvin Cheung-Miaw of Stanford University
Archaeologists including Dr. Susan Lindstrom, FS Ranger Penny Rucks, and FS Ranger Carrie Smith
And many people and institutions too numerous to name
For more information:
Thank you � for your� attention!
Email: suefawn.chung@gmail. com