Reno's Chinatown — the 1908 razing & the 2025 marker

On the second of November, 1908, the city ordered this neighbourhood torn down. This is where it stood.

Key facts

After the 1878 fire, Reno's Chinese community rebuilt here along Lake Street by the Truckee, and it grew back — homes, businesses, a temple.
On 2 November 1908 a Washoe County grand jury ordered Chinatown razed and the new Reno Board of Health branded it a “plague spot” and a “physical and moral threat.” Crews tore the buildings down and burned them.
Roughly 150 people were driven from their homes, in November. Only the joss house (the temple) and a few other buildings were left standing. The community tried to sue the city and appealed to the Chinese consul; the outcome isn't recorded. The last Chinatown building came down in the late 1950s.
In July 2025 the City of Reno set a historical marker on this spot — one of seven new markers, funded by a Nevada Humanities grant — the first public acknowledgement downtown.

Narration transcript

This is the place. Stand here a moment.

After the fire of 1878, the Chinese community rebuilt along this stretch of Lake Street, right by the river, and over the next thirty years it grew back — houses, shops, a temple, families. Then, on the second of November, 1908, the city destroyed it. A Washoe County grand jury ordered the neighbourhood razed, and the city's Board of Health declared it a "plague spot" and a threat to the public — and crews came through and tore the buildings down and burned them.

About a hundred and fifty people lost their homes that month, going into winter. Only the temple and a few buildings were left standing. The community hired a lawyer to sue the city and sent word to the Chinese consul in San Francisco; what came of it, the record doesn't say. The last of the old Chinatown was finally pulled down in the late 1950s.

For more than a century, nothing here said any of this had happened. Then, in 2025, the City of Reno put up the marker you're standing next to — the first time, downtown, that the city has named what it did on this ground. Read it. Then we'll walk on.