Virginia & First — Reno's first Chinatown (1878)
Where Reno's first Chinatown stood — and where it burned, in 1878.
Key facts
- Reno's first Chinatown rose here at Virginia and First Streets, by the Truckee, soon after the railroad brought Chinese workers to the Truckee Meadows.
- On 3 August 1878 a fire leveled about fifty buildings and killed two people. The cause is contested — reported as accidental at the time, blamed by many historians on anti-Chinese agitation; it came amid a town fight over a canal contract that used Chinese labour.
- Within about a week the community rebuilt a few blocks east, along the river at Lake Street — where the tour is headed.
Narration transcript
Stand on this corner — Virginia and First — and picture it crowded and busy, because this is where Reno's first Chinatown stood. When the railroad came through in the late 1860s, the Chinese workers who'd built it didn't vanish; many stayed, here in the Truckee Meadows, and built a neighbourhood of homes, shops, laundries and temples right on this block by the river.
It didn't last. On a hot night in August 1878 a fire tore through and leveled some fifty buildings; two people died. What caused it, honestly, we don't fully know — the papers of the day called it accidental, but a lot of historians since have doubted that, because it came right in the middle of an ugly town fight over a canal contract that hired Chinese crews, and anti-Chinese feeling was running hot. By some accounts it was no accident at all.
Either way, the people didn't scatter. Within about a week they rebuilt — a few blocks east, along the river at Lake Street. That second Chinatown is where this tour is really going. But first, look up the street at the thing Reno is famous for.