Chinatown gets recognition

When Jimmy Lee’s father came to Colusa in 1921 and opened Chung Sun Market, there were more than 300 Asian people living by the river on the north side of town.

Some were descendants of Chinese immigrants that poured into California between the 1848 Gold Rush and the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Others were Japanese, who came to California between 1886 and 1920 when Japan relaxed its emigration laws because of severe economic conditions within the country.

“Most of the Chinese who lived in Colusa in the early days had worked on the railroad,” said Lee, who was born in Colusa’s Chinatown and raised in Colusa. “Afterwards, many became houseboys and cooks – like on the show ‘Bonanza.’”

Others operated stores and businesses in Chinatown, Lee said, which stretched along both sides of Main Street from Fifth to 12th streets.

“In the early days – if you were Chinese – you were not able to shop in town,” Lee said. “You could only get a hair cut in Chinatown.”

Underground tunnels

The original Chinese district in Colusa consisted of rows of wooden shacks, where the Chinese were restricted by prejudice and their own customs to congregate together for comfort and safety. A network of tunnels honeycombed the ground beneath the street, Lee said, and were used for both legal and illegal activities.

“There were opium dens and gambling halls,” Lee said. “The tunnels were quite extensive.”

The tunnels also provided protection from outsiders.

“The Chinese people were afraid of the law,” Lee said. “If the law came looking for someone, they would escape through the tunnels. A constable wouldn’t go down there. If he did, he might not come back for days.”

Fear of the law was not unfounded.

In the late 1800s, an angry mob paraded 17-year-old Hong Di through the streets of Colusa’s Chinatown as a reminder that California justice was swift and unforgiving.

Di was the houseboy of the Billiou family, who owned a large ranch near St. John in what is now Glenn County. Di was convicted in Colusa County Superior Court of the April 7, 1887, shooting death of Mrs. Billiou and injury of family friend William H. Weaver as the family sat down for dinner, according to the archives of the “Colusa Weekly Sun.”

After the shooting, Li escaped. Posses were formed and many of the county’s 900 Chinese were questioned or harassed. One man, mistaken for Di, was shot in the back and killed.

Di was captured – more than a month after the shooting – near Butte City. He was tried for murder, convicted and sentenced to life in prison. 

But locals screamed for death, and a lynch mob overran the jail. After shoving him through Chinatown, the mob hanged Di at the Colusa and Lake Railroad yard in front of a crowd of 2,000 cheering people.

Will S. Green, then editor and publisher of the “Colusa Weekly Sun,” referred to the mob as the “court of last resort.”

From wood to brick

After a fire that swept through Chinatown in the 1870s destroyed most of the district, the town council prohibited the building of wooden structures. By the 1890s – as Chinese businesses flourished – most of Chinatown had been replaced with sturdier buildings, constructed for both residential and commercial purposes. 

The north side of Main Street was a row of tin shacks, which were leveled in the 1940s when the city widened the levee. The south side included the row of brick structures, which remain today as the only link to Colusa’s Chinese cultural heritage. J.B. Danner, a local mason, constructed the buildings – which shared a common wall and had flat roofs, detailed brick cornices and arched windows flanking the doorways.

Most of the tunnels were sealed up as Colusa’s roadways became paved and modern water and sewer systems installed.

In the early 20th century, many of the local Chinese prospered. The Chinese grew produce and other crops to sell in the large Chinese communities that had settled in the Bay Area.

George Chan’s father farmed a large parcel on the west end of Main Street and shipped his produce – mostly melons – by rail to Oakland and then by ferry to San Francisco.

“My father could not speak English,” said Chan, 74, of Yuba City. “He always had a pocket dictionary on him and he looked up English phrases word by word.”

Chan also employed immigrants other than Chinese to transport goods.

“A Russian man that worked for my father couldn’t speak English either,” Chan said. “They would use hand signals. It’s a wonder they could communicate at all.”

The Chinatown district housed both a Chinese and Japanese school, barber shop, grocery store, laundry and a temple for worship. The district even had a brothel, according to Lee, and its Chinese madam was the first in her day to have a modern ice cream cooler.

“She handed out popsicles to everyone who came by,” Lee said.

Chung Sun

Like many of the Chinese who settled in Northern California, Jimmy’s Lee’s father Kam Lee emmigrated from the Canton region of southern China to the Bay Area.

Lee was only 16 when he arrived in California in 1916 and only 20 when a cousin invited him to Colusa to go into the grocery business. He established Chung Sun Market in 1921. He married and had eight children – four boys and four girls – and became well known in the community. 

In addition to Chung Sun Market, which was originally housed on the corner of Sixth and Main Streets, Lee created a grocery network in which the Chinese pooled their resources to establish stores throughout the region. The market, now next door to its original location, remains in ownership by the Lee family.

History remembered

On Saturday, more than 100 members of E. Clampus Vitus converged on Colusa to dedicate a plaque they installed in Chinatown to commemorate the Chinese presence in Colusa.

Members, who called themselves “Clampers,” said they have a passion for preserving history, and Colusa’s Chinatown was an ideal project.

“This process started about a year ago,” said Dean Hamlin, of EVC chapter 1004. “We’ve been working closely with the Colusa Heritage Preservation Committee. It was a perfect fit. The preservation committee had already established the China district as a landmark, but they didn’t have the money for a plaque.”

It was the first time Clamber Marty Spalka, of Cotati in Sonoma County, has been in Colusa.

“I love it,” Spalka said. “It’s a small town with a lot of history – a gold mine just waiting to be discovered.”

In addition to Clampers, members of the Colusa City Council, Colusa County Board of Supervisors, the Colusa Preservation Committee and many other attended Saturday’s dedication.

The plaque, which is displayed on the building owned by Beth Davis and Mike and Tracey Herrick, was dedicated “Clamper” style by pouring a bottle of beer over its face.

Both Chan and Rita Lee, wife of Chung Sun’s Bob Lee, displayed a large collection of Chinese artifacts during the event.

Most of Chan’s artifacts were found during an excavation of Colusa’s Chinatown.

Lee’s were family heirloom and possessions, and included her grandfather’s own rice bowl and chop sticks and the tiny shoes that covered her grandmother’s bound feet.

Contact Susan Meeker at 458-2121 or smeeker@tcnpress.com.