In the early 1860s, thousands of Chinese men, most of them originating from
Guangdong province in southern China, were hired by
Central Pacific Railroad Co. to work on the western portion of the first transcontinental railroad. Many of them settled in Los Angeles. In the
Chinese massacre of 1871, 19 Chinese men and boys were killed by a mob of about 500 men in an area of Los Angeles known as
Calle de los Negros or Negro Alley, which had been known as a dangerous area for two decades. It was one of the most serious incidents of racial violence that has ever occurred in the American West. The first Chinatown, centered on
Alameda and
Macy Streets (now Cesar Chavez Avenue), was established in 1880. Reaching its heyday from 1890 to 1910, Chinatown grew to approximately fifteen streets and alleys containing some two hundred buildings. It boasted a
Chinese Opera theater, three
temples, a newspaper and a telephone exchange. But laws prohibiting most Chinese from citizenship and property ownership, as well as legislation curtailing immigration, inhibited future growth. According to
LAPL history-department librarian Glen Creason, “The strange cartographical phenomena of Chinatown is that it was often ignored…However, we do have several intimate looks in the
Dakin Atlas or our
Sanborn Fire Insurance atlases that name the dens of sin and label opium joints, saloons, tenements, gambling establishments, and buildings labeled ‘I.F.’ for houses of ill fame…Chinatown was a place of many stories where families lived good lives alongside shady operations where rubes were fleeced and Angelenos wiped their brows with the devil’s kerchief.” Circa 1900, there were about 3,000 people living in Chinatown. This Chinatown was described in a 1914 southern California guidebook created for visitors to the
Panama-Pacific Exposition: :North of the old plaza, at North Los Angeles and Marchesault streets, is Chinatown, a fantastic bit of the Orient which furnishes the tourist with many interesting sights, both during the day and the evening. For the stranger, a guide is desirable, especially during the evening. Unless one is going merely for shopping, a guide will add much to the pleasure of the visit, since he will have access to place not open to everyone, and will explain the curious customs of the Chinese. The shops are filled with beautiful and attractive articles and the quaint dresses of the women and children are a neverending source of interest. For any festal occasion the costumes of the men and women are beautiful in quality and color and the effect is highly decorative. From the early 1910s, Chinatown began to decline. Symptoms of a corrupt Los Angeles discolored the public's view of Chinatown;
gambling houses,
opium dens and a fierce
tong warfare severely reduced business in the area. As tenants and lessees rather than outright owners, the residents of Old Chinatown were threatened with impending redevelopment, and as a result the owners neglected upkeep of their buildings. Eventually, the entire area was sold and then resold, as entrepreneurs and developers fought over the area. In the interregnum, a spur of Old Chinatown grew up around the City Market at Ninth and San Pedro, sometimes called the
City Market Chinatown. The market provided jobs and new opportunities so “residents moved to single family homes in the East Adams area to be closer to the new market.” Residents were evicted to make room for
Union Station without a plan for the relocation of the Chinatown community. Chinatown was gradually demolished, leaving many businesses without a place to do business and forcing some to close. A remnant of Old Chinatown persisted into the early 1950s, situated between Union Station and the Old Plaza. Several businesses and a
Buddhist temple lined Ferguson Alley, a narrow one-block street running between the Plaza and Alameda. The most notable of the surviving buildings was the old
Lugo Adobe, having been built in 1838 by
the prominent Californio family. Some decades later, the Lugo Adobe became the original home of
Loyola Marymount University, and later, it was rented to Chinese-Americans who ran shops on the ground floor and a lodging house upstairs.
Christine Sterling, who had brought to fruition the
Olvera Street and
China City projects, argued that remaining buildings of Old Chinatown were an eyesore and advocated successfully for the razing of all the remaining structures between the Plaza and Union Station. == Cultural impact ==