Carson City’s Chinatown Then and Now

I’ve already taken a look at this before, back in 2018, but it’s worth another look since there are so many photos, and I’ve found even more since then.

Like many towns in the West, Carson City had a Chinatown. The Chinese were brought to the area in the mid 1800s to build the railroads, but then excluded from working in the Virginia City mines for fears that they would take jobs from Americans. Many of them settled in Carson City but they faced discrimination and segregation and were not allowed to live in other parts of town. The only place they were allowed to live was here, on Third Street.

Chinatown in Carson City was centered around Third Street, at its intersections with Stewart and Valley. The above view looks east on Third towards Valley. The neighborhood consisted of hotels, shops, restaurants, houses of worship, and even a Masonic Hall. At its height there were nearly 1,000 Chinese residents in Carson City. Chinatown was largely separate from the rest of town even though it was only a couple of blocks away from the Capitol. Some of the Chinese worked as laborers and cooks elsewhere in town, but they were often not allowed to patronize those establishments. Chinatown was the one place where the Chinese were free to shop, eat, and do business with each other.

Chinatown in 1875. Taken from Augustus Koch’s Birds Eye View of Carson City.

The longtime policies of discrimination and segregation led to most of the Chinese leaving Nevada eventually. Chinatown dwindled until only a few residents remained. The buildings were vandalized, ravaged by fire, and demolished over time, until finally in the 1950s the land was bought by the State for new offices. Now everything in the historic photos has been removed. A parking lot occupies the site of the main commercial block of Chinatown. and State offices can be seen in the distance.

This view is from Stewart looking east. In the foreground you can see the tracks of the Virginia and Truckee Railroad. In the early 20th century, when this photo was taken, these tracks were the main line to Minden. But Chinatown was already in decline by the turn of the 20th century. In the modern-day view of Third Street, the State Printing Office is on the right. A historic plaque sits in the parking lot so that Chinatown is not forgotten. The rails were removed in 1950.

An aerial view of Chinatown from 1932. You can see how close it was to the Capitol.

From the 1907 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, we can see the layout of Chinatown, centered on Third Street. A few of the buildings are labeled; we’ll be looking at those below.

One of the substantial stone buildings in Chinatown was the Chinese Free Mason Hall. Despite the name, it had no affiliation with the Freemasons. This was a community center and meeting place. It was also known as a Joss House, and most Chinese communities in the American West in the 1800s had one. There was an elaborate altar inside for prayer, and when this building was demolished the altar was moved to the Nevada State Museum. The site of the Free Mason Hall is where they installed a historical plaque about Chinatown in 2003.

The Yee Bong Cafe was a two-story building at the corner of Third and Valley, under the shade of a huge cottonwood. This was a restaurant, probably one of the last remaining businesses in Chinatown in the 1930s, and Yee Bong himself is posing out front. It had acquired a quite noticeable lean over the decades. Constructed entirely of wood, it didn’t last as long as some of the stone buildings did.

Another view of the Yee Bong Cafe from across the street. The rear of the building seems to be sagging pretty heavily.

Across from Yee Bong’s to the east was the Six Companies Building. The Six Companies was a benevolent association that helped Chinese immigrants on the West Coast of America. It was founded in San Francisco, but because of the historic ties between Western Nevada and San Francisco, their influence spread here too. But by the 1930s, when these photos were taken, the Chinese population in Carson City had dwindled so much that they probably weren’t active here anymore. This building was probably only used as a residence by then, if at all.

Another view of the Six Companies Building underneath a large cottonwood.

On the south side of Third Street the buildings were smaller and probably more residential than those on the north side. There was also an open drainage ditch, requiring bridges to be built from the street to the front porches. These houses are now the location of the State Printing Office.

This view looks south on Valley Street. The Six Companies Building is on the left and the balcony of the Yee Bong Cafe can be seen on the right. Straight ahead Valley Street dead-ended at a row of buildings. Now all those buildings are gone, and Valley Street continues for another block before dead-ending into some parking lots.

Here’s a closeup of those buildings from the last photo. At least a couple of them seem to be made of stone. Most of them look abandoned. The drainage ditch ran along here too. Now Valley Street cuts right through here.

Chinatown’s decline accelerated in the late ’30s. This updated Sanborn Map from 1941 shows only a few buildings remaining, mostly the stone ones.

Third Street looked different by 1944. The Six Companies Building still stands, but it looks lonely; its neighbors to the east having been demolished. Behind it you can tell that the Yee Bong Cafe has also been demolished, but a couple of the one-story wooden buildings next door to it are still there. And in the distance is the Free Mason Hall, also lacking neighbors. This photo matches up pretty well with what the Sanborn map said remained in the 1940s.

A fire in 1950 finished off last the few wooden buildings. Here are two aerial photos from the 1950s showing what remained of Chinatown by then. There were only about 4 buildings left. The Free Mason Hall on the left and the Six Companies Building on the right were two of them that held on to the end.

In 1961 the end was near for the last few buildings. The Six Companies Building is unrecognizable, stripped of most of its balconies and nearly everything but its stone walls. Signs of construction activity are seen in the background; this is early work on the Nevada Department of Employment, Training & Rehabilitation building that is still there on the site. The old stone building was probably demolished as part of this work, this photo being its last record.

Across the street from the Six Companies Building was this stone building. This photo was taken from the site of the Yee Bong Cafe; its old cottonwood is still standing there at the corner. This building is stripped down to its stone walls just the same as the Six Companies Building. This one actually survived a couple of years longer than the Six Companies, but by 1970 it was demolished and replaced by the steel warehouse that is still on the site today.

Our last view of Chinatown is taken from the east, near Roop Street. It shows the backside of a lot of the wooden buildings, all of them leaning and sagging. The two-story Six Companies Building rises above the others. This was the view that most residents of Carson City probably had of Chinatown. Seeing it from the outside as they passed by, but with no reason to venture inside.

Carson City’s Chinatown has been erased, unlike some other cities where their Chinatowns were preserved and made a vibrant part of town. Who knows what it would be like if some of these buildings had been saved instead of being unceremoniously bulldozed. 20 years ago there was an effort to build a Chinese history museum in Carson City, that went unrealized. Perhaps if these buildings still existed, they could have formed an important part of a museum like that. Instead they are parking lots, with only a historic marker and a few photos remaining to tell the story.