Carson City, Nevada’s Chinatown

A 1875 lithograph of Carson City and a 1907 Sanborn Fire Insurance map places Chinatown between East Second and East Fourth streets, and from Fall Street to Valley Street. The main street was East Third, with Chinatown spread out on both sides of the Virginia & Truckee Railroad tracks.

Population estimates for Chinatown have ranged from as low as 800 to as many as 2,000. In 1870, 697 Chinese lived in the state capital and by 1880, that number had grown by 105.

Ten years later most of Nevada was in decline and Carson City was no exception. The city’s Chinese population fell to 670. By the turn of the century that population had shrunk to 152.

Despite a mining boom in 1910, the Chinese population of Carson City saw an even further decline to 118 souls. By 1920, the number was down to 73, and by 1930 it had dropped even further to 31.

By the time 1940 rolled in, Carson City was seeing a small growth in its over-all population; however this did nothing for the Chinese residents whose numbers hovered at 20. By this time, only a handful of buildings, including the Chinese Masonic Hall on East Third Street, were all that was left of Chinatown.

By 1950, only six Chinese people resided in the county. And by 1960, there were 10 Chinese living in the county and none of them lived in what was left of Chinatown.

The state of Nevada bought what was left of Chinatown in the 50s for future capitol complex expansion. The state razed the last of Chinatown in the 1960s, making way for the Supreme Court, the Legislative Parking Garage, the State Printing Office, the Employment, Training and Rehabilitation and a parking lot.