China Slough
{{Short description|Historical Landmark in Sacramento, United States}}
{{Infobox historic site
| name = China Slough
| image = China_Slough_1878.jpg
| caption = Old Central Pacific Depot and Trestle Bridge over the China Slough in 1878.
| location = 401 I Street, Sacramento, California
| coordinates = {{coord|38.584|-121.500|region:US-CA_source:gnis-218162_type:landmark|display=inline,title}}
| locmapin = California#USA
| built = 1849
| architect =
| architecture =
| added =
| designation1 = California
| designation1_number = 594
| governing_body =
}}
File:Chinese_event_on_I_Street_1882.jpg
China Slough (also called: Sutter Slough, China Lake, Sutter Lake, Sacramento Chinatown, Sacramento Chinadom, Old Sacramento Chinatown, Yee Fow), is historical site in Sacramento, California. The site of the former China Slough is California Historical Landmark No. 594, registered on May 22, 1957. The site of California Historical Landmark China Slough is the northeast corner of 4th Street and I Street in Sacramento at about 401 I Street. Before the China Slough was filled in, the waterway ran from 3rd Street to 5th Streets to north of I Street in Sacramento. The site became the Central Pacific Railroad Sacramento station built in 1910. The 1910 station had a wooden Trestle bridge built over the China Slough. A new depot was built nearby, the Sacramento Valley Station in 1926 and is now operated by Amtrak. The China Slough ran almost where the current Amtrak train tracks run today.{{cite ohp |594 |China Slough #594 |2012-10-07}}{{Cite web|url=https://noehill.com/sacramento/cal0594.asp|title=California Historical Landmark 594: China Slough Site in Sacramento, California|website=noehill.com}}Sacramento's Chinatown, by Lawrence Tom and Brian Tom, 2010
History
The slough was a swampy slow flowing channel of water off the Sacramento River in to the City of Sacramento. On each banks of the China Slough was the old Sacramento Chinatown. Before a Chinese population moved in, it was called Sutter Slough. The first group of Chinese immigrants came to Sacramento from 1849 to 1853, to escape the poor condition in southeastern China. In southeastern China was a famine, a very poor economy, high taxes, due to the Opium Wars (1839-1860), Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864) and Punti–Hakka Clan Wars (1855–1868).{{Cite web|url=http://www.yeefow.com/past/1848.html|title=1848 - Coming to America, The Diaspora of the Chinese to California|website=www.yeefow.com}} From 1849 to 1853 about 24,000 young Chinese men immigrated to California looking to improve their lives. The next group of Chinese immigrants came to Sacramento to help built the First transcontinental railroad starting in 1863. From 1863 and 1869, about 15,000 Chinese workers helped build the transcontinental railroad. The train tracks started in Sacramento and headed east.
The non-Chinese Sacramento pioneers did not want the swampy slough, so the Chinese community was free to live there. They built up the slough into a waterfront town. The Chinese immigrants brought in a host of skills: merchants opened store, cooks opened restaurants, laundrymen opened laundry services, entertainers put on theatre shows, and entrepreneurs served the needs not only in Chinatown but the needs of the city. Sutter Lake was formed with seasonally in the slough with spring and winter flooded. China Slough bathhouses were popular with all.
In December 1856, a local Chinese Daily News (沙架免度新錄, Cantonese transliteration for Sacramento News) was founded by Ze Too Yune (司徒源), the first Chinese-run overseas Chinese newspaper.{{cite web |last1=Yang |first1=Tao |title=Press, Community, and Library: A Study of the Chinese-language Newspapers Published in North America |url=http://eprints.rclis.org/13145/1/cl27yang.pdf |access-date=10 October 2020 |date=January 2009}}[http://www.yeefowmuseum.org/yeefowhistory.pdf Sacramento's Chinese of Yee Fow yeefowmuseum.org] In March 1858, the Sacramento Chinese held a local Chinese Regatta in Sutter Lake, Festival of the Dragon Boat, with its Sze Yup (四邑) Company racing its Sam Yup (三邑) Company, which drew a large crowd lining the levee to view the contest.{{cite web |title=Chinese Regatta— Festival of the Dragon Boat. |url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=SDU18580318.2.11&srpos=33&e=-------en--20--21-byDA-txt-txIN-chinese+dragon-ARTICLE------ |website=cdnc.ucr.edu |publisher=Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 14, Number 2176, 18 March 1858 |access-date=23 December 2023}}https://www.sacbee.com/news/bee-curious/article272028357.html The main part of Sacramento Chinatown was located on I Street (the slough's levee road) from Second to Sixth Streets. Flood waters overflowed the levee and into Chinatown and the city a few times between 1850 and 1862.{{Cite web|url=http://www.yeefow.com/past/1882.html|title=1882 - American Sinophobia, The Chinese Exclusion Act and "The Driving Out"|website=www.yeefow.com}}
The Sze Yup Association was set up to greet new Chinese immigrants as they departed ships and helped them find housing and jobs, some trained to head to the gold mines, called Gam Saan (gold mountain). Other such Chinese organizations were formed in California also, like the Suey Sing Association. Sze Yup Association set up a charity house in China Slough and owned other China Slough buildings. In China Slough, Sacramento was often called in Cantonese Yee Fow (二埠, Second City), as San Francisco was called Dai Fow (大埠, The Big City).{{Cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/goldrush-chinese-immigrants/|title=Chinese Immigrants and the Gold Rush | American Experience|website=www.pbs.org}}{{cite book |last1=Hecteman |first1=Kevin W. |title=Sacramento's Southern Pacific Shops. Chapter Three: China Slough and Chinatown |date=2010 |publisher=Arcadia Publishing |location=Charleston, SC |isbn=9781439640159 |page=37-42 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Svu57t3PCtsC&q=southern%20pacific%20shops%20hecteman%20china%20slough}}
Like other early pioneers town, the China Slough buildings and houses were make of wood. There were a number of fires that burnt parts of the China Slough. China Slough was rebuilt after each fire. The July 1854 fire burnt much of downtown China Slough. After the July 1855 fire, that was let to burn by the city, the Sacramento Board of Trustees passed an ordinance requiring new buildings be built with bricks. Much of the China Slough was rebuilt with brick buildings. In 1880, the city cut off the China Slough from the Sacramento River, ending the China Slough fishing industry and making the water stagnant and smelly. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, stopped new Chinese immigration and reinforced hostilities to Chinese. In 1909, The City of Sacramento found a way to close the China Slough, a new railway station and train tracks would be built on the China Slough. All the Chinese buildings and house closed and the town was buried. Filling in of the Slough started in 1863 from sand from the American River and was complete in 1910, when a new railyard and station were built.Joseph A. McGowan Report on the Historical Development of the City of Sacramento Blocks, 1978 The last land fill and elimination of the China Slough was 1919. Chinatown moved south to Front Street and spread out from the closed down China Slough. When the Sacramento Capitol Mall was built in 1965 some of the Front Street Chinatown was displaced. There is a small area around I Street and J Street that makes up the modern Sacramento Chinatown, including the 1959 Confucius Temple of Sacramento.{{Cite web|url=http://www.yeefow.com/past/1850.html|title=1850 - The Beginnings of Sacramento's Chinatown at China Slough|website=www.yeefow.com}}[https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/ce8246bc-442b-4d28-8471-c46969a3d1c9 Southern Pacific Railroad Company's Sacramento Depo nps.gov]
The Yee Fow Museum in Sacramento and Yee Fow Center for History, work to preserve the Sacramento Chinatown history.{{Cite web|url=http://yeefowmuseum.org/|title=Friends Of the Yee Fow Museum|website=yeefowmuseum.org}}
- China Slough companies
Some of the China Slough firms:{{Cite web|url=https://www.stfrancisparish.com/history/chapter5/index.htm|title=Celebrating Franciscan Spirituality: Chapter 5 - Our Church in a Larger World: 1910 - 1920|website=www.stfrancisparish.com}}
- Canton Chinese Theater
- Moor's Opera House starting in 1879
- Sze Yup Association offices
- Sze Yup Association charity house
- Chinese Daily News (沙架免度新錄) 1856-1858{{cite web |last1=Cui |first1=Jane |title=Three Earliest Chinese Newspapers and Three Persons (三份早期华文报纸和三位办报人) |url=https://usdandelion.com/archives/6166 |publisher=American and Chinese History (美华史记) Association of Chinese Americans for Social Justice |access-date=23 December 2023 |date=27 October 2021}}
- Five cigar factories
- Two shoe making shops
- Wholesaler Wah Hing
- Wholesaler Ye Chung
- Wholesaler Tong Wo Yaun
- Wholesaler J. Henare and Co.
- 15 grocery stores
- Two fish markets, Tong Sung Fish, Capitol Poultry and Fish Market
- Plate factory
- Produce markets, including: Fulton Market, Lincoln Market, Quopng Fung
- Bathhouses
- Three restaurants
- Six barber shops
- Seven physicians offices
- Four butcher shops
- Two slaughter yards
- Bing Hong Tong club
- Yang gambling houses
- 43 laundries (citywide)
- Pawnshop
- Joss house Chinese Temple moved to 915 Third Street
- Christian Church, Rev. J. Lewis Shuck
- Congregational Christian Mission
- Gee Kung Tong Chinese Christian Mission
- Two drug stores
- Three Tailor Shops
- Que Lup Wah Gong Tong School
- Wah Hun Hawk How School (Chinese Baptists)
Population
While United States census, before 1860, did not count the China Slough or Chinese in Sacramento County, by 1860 the China Slough and Chinese in Sacramento County were recorded:
- 1860 1,731San Joaquin Republican, 1860 U.S. Census
- 1870 3,5951870 U.S. Census, Washington 1872, pp. 15, 91
- 1880 4,8921880 U.S. Census, Washington 1883, p.382, p. 416
- 1890 4,3711890 U.S. Census Washington, 1895 p. 437
- 1900 3,2541900 U. S. Census Washington, 1901 p. 565
Gallery
Sacramento ca 1855.jpg|Sacramento in 1855
File:K Street, Inundation of the State Capitol, City of Sacramento, 1862.jpg|Great Flood of 1862
China_Slough_I_Street_great_flood_of_1862.jpg|China Slough and the railroad construction project along I Street during the great flood of 1862
Sutte_Lake_map_of_Sacramento,_California_in_1880.jpg|Map of Sacramento, California in 1880 with Sutter Lake and Central Pacific RR station; China Slough had been cut off from the Sacramento River (left) in 1880.
Sacramento Valley Station.JPG|Sacramento Valley Station, on the site of the former China Slough
Sacramento Valley Station platforms, October 2018.jpg|Sacramento Valley Station tracks follow the path of the former China Slough.
File:Sacramento Chinatown Mall Paifang.jpg|Sacramento Chinatown Mall Paifang in 2013
File:Sacramento Chinatown 溯源堂 - panoramio.jpg|Sacramento Chinatown 溯源堂 in 2012