Locke, California
Historic Chinese Town
Old gas pump in front
of last building on east side of Main Street
Gas pump on Main Street
dates back to 1920ies
The east side of Main
Street, looking north
The town of Locke is unincorporated and
there are no elected officials. Chinese immigrants first came
to the Delta in the 1860ies to work on building the levees. The
California state legislature passed the Swamp and Overflow Act
in 1861 in order to reclaim land in the Delta for farming. After
1880, when 88,000 acres of land had been reclaimed in the Delta,
the Chinese immigrants stayed on as farm workers. In the 1920ies,
the main crop in the Locke area was asparagus.
All the buildings that you see in Locke
today were built by 1920 and the town still looks essentially
the way it did back then. During the roaring 20ies, Locke had
three gambling houses, several opium dens, a speak easy or two,
and five houses of ill repute, but no police force. Chinese farm
workers, who were mostly single men, worked 6 days a week for
a dollar a day, and came to Locke to socialize on their one day
off.
Front of building on
Main Street is shaded from western sun
Living quarters have
balconies overlooking Main Street
The streets of Locke are less than a
quarter of a mile long. During its heyday, Locke was filled with
visitors; residents sat on their balconies overlooking Main Street
and chatted with their neighbors, who all shared a common language.
The California Alien Land law prevented
non-citizens from owning land in California. The Japanese and
Chinese immigrants were prevented from becoming American citizens
until after 1952 when the original US naturalization laws were
declared unconstitutional. These naturalization laws had allowed
only free white people to become citizens; after the Civil War,
black people became citizens of the United States under the 14th
Amendment, but Chinese immigrants could not become citizens until
1952. The residents of Locke could own their houses, but not
the land on which they were built.
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