The Mountain Messenger

Ghosts of Sierrans Past: Truckee's Chinatown

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Truckee is today a bustling town of about 16,000, where myriad tourists come to ski, shop or unwind, while trucks transit the town via Interstate 80, one of our nation's largest transportation arteries. Yet this destination, which markets itself for its historic character and authenticity, is missing what was once one of its' most notable components - a Chinese-American commercial district. And Truckee didn't just boast any average Chinatown; at its height, Truckee's Chinatown was the second-largest in the Western United States, behind only San Francisco's now globally famed community. So, what happened?

During the construction of the First Transcontinental Railroad from 1868 to 1869, Chinese immigrant laborers were recruited by the Central Pacific Railroad upon arrival in the states. These immigrants were refugees fleeing a bloody civil war started by a failed local bureaucrat who grossly misinterpreted pamphlets he received from a Protestant missionary and awoke from a fever sh...