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Traveling Northern California: Locke, America’s last rural Chinatown
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA – “There’s something special about this place,” Stuart Wathall says, as he and I sit in his wood-paneled living room behind Main Street in the town of Locke. “Something that you feel the moment you walk in.”
For those like Wathall who now call Locke their permanent home, that feeling convinced them to first lay roots in this rural town. The sense of community and love for the history of the place has kept them here.
It certainly doesn’t take much time walking through the river town of Locke itself to intuitively understand what Wathall is saying.
The only surviving town in the United States built for the Chinese by the Chinese stands bent and half-sinking into the reclaimed peat bog of California’s central valley, just two and a half hours from Lake County.
This unincorporated town runs along the foot of the levee containing the Sacramento River. It is easily overlooked.
As you zip along River Road, which straddles the levee and provides stunning views of the now swollen river, the only hint of the town itself is a series of old building fronts. These clapboard and corrugated metal structures quickly pass out of view, even more quickly if you are being urged on by another car riding your tail.
The speed limit on this stretch of the road is 55 miles per hour, but commuters bypassing traffic on nearby I-5 tend to push that closer to 65 and are impatient with sightseers.
Suppress the urge to speed up and keep watch for the brown historical markers along the road that announce the location of the town and its significance as the last remaining rural Chinatown in the United States.
Modern-day Locke only houses between 70 and 80 permanent residents, many of whom live in the houses that stretch backwards from the foot of the levee and the town’s Main Street.
When it was created in 1915, most of the residents of Locke were Chinese farmworkers and merchants who had been burned out of nearby Walnut Grove following a fire that destroyed much of that town.
Starting in the 1970s, the new generation of the Chinese residents began to move away from the small farming town and those who remained passed away, leaving a bare remnant of the once flourishing community. Today, fewer than 10 Chinese residents harken back to this town’s oriental origins.
The Sacramento County Historical Society placed Locke on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970, starting a decades-long interest in the historical importance of the small town. Efforts to preserve the dilapidated buildings quickly stalled, however.
“The Asian City Development Corporation, a Hong-Kong-based developer, bought the land under the town, about 70 acres [in 1977] with plans to develop houses and such,” explains Wathall, president of the Locke Foundation.
A nonprofit whose mission is to educate the public on the unique culture and heritage of the town, the Locke Foundation strives to preserve the town itself.
The foundation was created in 2004 when the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency purchased the land from the developer.
After subdividing it and selling it in parcels to homeowners and business operators, the town of Locke once again fell under private ownership.
Since then, the Locke Foundation has worked to revitalize the town, making it a tourist destination more in line with its historic importance. To be honest, it is a surprise that such an important part of our nation’s history is so little known.
Turning down Levee Road into the heart of Locke is an experience to be cherished, if a little disorienting.
Lining the street are weathered, clapboard-sided one and two-story buildings. Their corrugated-metal roofs, some coated in a thick layer of rust others pristinely clear, alternately absorb the California sun or reflect it back in shining brilliance.
Porches extend over the sidewalks below, their supporting posts framing the street. You have a sense of having seen this street before. Probably because you have—in historic photos of every rural town in America and in Hollywood westerns.
What distinguishes this vista from generic ones of western towns elsewhere are the ubiquitous symbols of this town’s Chinese heritage.
From Chinese characters on street signs and banners to pre-communist era Republic of China flags hanging on walls, there is no mistaking the culture that built this town.
If you happened to miss those, there are two large bronze busts of Confucius and Dr. Sun yat sen, founding member of the Republic of China, standing at the beginning of Main Street.
The fact that you literally have to descend into the town from the levee above only heightens the sense of dislocation for first time visitors.
In driving down from River Road, parking your car and stepping out onto Main Street, you have traveled back in time. Enjoy the sensation.
But don’t dally – there’s a lot to see in this small town.
Although it might look it at first glance, this isn’t a ghost town. Art galleries, a bookstore, a restaurant and a bar can be found along the short hundred-yard stretch of Main Street Locke. Three museums – the Locke Boarding House, the Chinese Association Museum and the Dai Loy Gambling House Museum – give visitors some context for the historic town.
Located in a former gambling hall, the Dai Loy museum treats visitors to a glimpse into the illicit world that Locke once inhabited.
Although founded by a few dozen farm working families, during prohibition this small, unincorporated town would swell in population to over a thousand as residents from Sacramento and nearby Stockton flocked to one of the town’s numerous gambling halls and brothels.
With mint-green wainscoting, tobacco-stained white walls and gaming tables strewn about, the main room of the Dai Loy museum preserves the gambling hall as it once was.
Walking through the large wood and iron-riveted doors, the sense of dislocation you felt on Main Street has disappeared, the world of 21st-century California long gone.
You are a young visitor to the thriving town of prohibition-era Locke looking for a good time. Will it be Pai Ngow or Fan Tan? How about just belly up to the bar, wrap yourself a cigarette (the tobacco sits in a carton, on the house), and enjoy the uproar of the crowd?
The swelling wooden floor alone breaks the illusion of vibrant life. After perennial flooding, the floorboards have warped and serve as a reminder that this piece of American history hangs onto life rather precariously.
All of the buildings on Main Street Locke, in fact, are in different states of disrepair. The Locke Foundation has its work cut out ahead of it.
Having said that, the foundation has made a lot of improvements in the relatively short time. A beautiful Chinese memorial garden and the impressive Locke Boarding House Museum at the beginning of Main Street are testimonials to the group’s dedication.
“Of course, Locke is more than its main street,” reminds Wathall.
Although you might feel shy about walking off the tourist path and back into the neighborhood of the town itself, locals encourage this exploration.
“We built a wood boardwalk that takes you from Main Street through our community to our garden and then on a nice hike through the wetlands [surrounding the town],” Wathall said.
Be sure to bring your bug spray if you choose to take this jaunt, as the mosquitos fly in thick clouds in all types of weather and at all times of day. A few bug bites are worth the walk, though, if only to remind yourself that people still live in this remarkable town.
Even for those people who happen to stumble on the place by pure chance, the allure of historic Locke is impossible to ignore. Take your time and get off the beaten track to explore this gem in the heart of California.
Beware, though, this place has a way of staying with you long after you leave it. A return visit is almost expected and like your first, each return to Locke will be an experience to be cherished.
“That’s the room I first rented when I moved to Locke,” Wathall says, pointing to a small, high-ceilinged room, positioned off the large kitchen.
He moved away from the town for a few years, but soon returned and eventually bought the house in which he first rented a small room. “Is it nostalgia that we feel in Locke? Whatever it is, when I got here, it felt like home.”
Getting there
Locke is located just 25 minutes south of Sacramento and if you start out from Lake County at 8 a.m. you can reach it by 10:30 a.m.
Several routes will take you to this historic river town. By road, the quickest is to take I-5 through Sacramento to the Twin Cities exit, turn right off the off-ramp and pass through the low-lying farmland until you hit the Sacramento River. Taking a left at this three-way stop will find you on River Road and, in no time at all, the town of Locke. A small parking lot is located at the end of Levee Road, just past the Boarding House as well as along Main Street itself.
If you’d like to take your boat to waters beyond Clear Lake, public docks at both Locke and Walnut Grove will allow you to stop off at these towns as you float down the river.
If you go
On May 20, the town of Locke will be holding its annual Asian Pacific Festival.
A daylong festival with traditional Chinese dancing, martial arts displays and food, this is the perfect day to explore the town and immerse yourself in the culture that created it.
This is a very popular festival, so if you choose to go that day, locals suggest you get there as early as you can to get prime parking.
Antone Pierucci is the former curator of the Lake County Museum and a freelance writer whose work has been featured in such magazines as Archaeology and Wild West as well as regional California newspapers.
