A fair sized Chinatown existed in the U.S. city of

Spokane, Washington Spokane ( ) is the most populous city in eastern Washington and the county seat of Spokane County, Washington, United States. It lies along the Spokane River, adjacent to the Selkirk Mountains, and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, south o ...

, for years that started when the railroad came through in 1883. It consisted of a network of alleys between Front Avenue (today's Spokane Falls Boulevard) and Main Avenue that stretched east from Howard Avenue to North Division Street. The Chinese population gradually thinned out until the alley became abandoned by the 1940s. Virtually all that remained of the Chinatown alleys were demolished as part of construction projects spurred by Spokane's

Expo '74 Expo '74, officially known as the International Exposition on the Environment, Spokane 1974, was a world's fair held May 4, 1974, to November 3, 1974, in Spokane, Washington, in the Northwestern United States, northwest United States. It was the ...

History

In the 1880s, immigrants from China who had come to work on the railroad established a "bustling Chinatown" in Spokane which was as big as three to four blocks "... stretching from Howard Street to Bernard Street ..." parallel to what is now Spokane Falls Boulevard. It was also known by the nickname "Japanese Alley" or "Trent Alley". More sources said that the Chinatown swelled even more during the

Franklin Delano Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...

era with the internment of Asian peoples due to the war against

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. An old newspaper article shows that an annual convention for the Chinese Hip Sing organization was held in 1924.

References

Chinese-American culture in Washington (state)

Spokane Spokane ( ) is the most populous city in eastern Washington and the county seat of Spokane County, Washington, United States. It lies along the Spokane River, adjacent to the Selkirk Mountains, and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, south ...

{{SpokaneCountyWA-geo-stub