Photos: The Oregonian

Portland's Chinatown dates back to the 1870s, making it one of the oldest in the country.

Much has changed in recent years, with gleaming new development coming to the historic district and the Chinese community largely shifting to 82nd Avenue on the east side.

But the Old Town Chinatown neighborhood has managed to retain its distinctive character. Sunset magazine recommends Portland's Chinatown, once the second-largest in the U.S., for its "mix of divey Chinese lunch spots and new restaurants, mod art galleries and century-old brick buildings."

The new restaurants and mod galleries are indeed appealing, but it's the century-old buildings that truly have stories to tell.

That is where the Portland Chinatown Museum comes in. To help spread the word about the city's newest museum, which had its "soft opening" earlier this month, The Oregonian/OregonLive dug into its own archives.

The photos below showcase the neighborhood's fascinating history.

Don't Edit

Chinese immigrants began arriving in Oregon in the 1850s, with many working as miners in the southern and eastern parts of the growing territory. By 1900, Oregon had more than 10,000 Chinese residents, and Portland's Chinatown was flourishing.

Don't Edit

A Chinatown street in 1900.

Portland's Chinatown, writes the National Park Service, "developed around SW 1st and 2nd Avenues and SW Washington and Alder Streets, an area considered undesirable by European Americans due to constant flooding from the Willamette River."

Don't Edit

A family business in Portland's Chinatown in the early 1900s.

Chinese immigrants had built many thriving businesses in Portland, but by the early 1900s rising xenophobia in the U.S. -- exemplified by the Chinese Expulsion Acts -- was hitting the immigrant community hard.

"In Oregon," The Oregonian wrote in 2016, "Chinese residents were prohibited from voting, holding public office, attending public schools, serving on juries, entering professions and becoming naturalized citizens."

Don't Edit

A building in Portland's Chinatown in the 1880s.

What makes Chinatown special? Part of it is architectural aesthetics. "The Chinese made alterations to the buildings to reflect their cultural traditions," the National Park Service writes. "It was not unusual to see iron balconies, wooden awnings and curved, brightly-colored canopies over business doorways."

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Courtesy Oregon Historical Society

Portland native Leah Hing, whose herbalist father ran a shop in Chinatown, was one of the first Chinese-American women to earn a pilot's license. She worked as a mechanic at the Portland Army Air Base during World War II. This photo is part of the exhibit "Beyond the Gate: A Tale of Portland's Two Historic Chinatowns," which was at the Oregon Historical Society in 2016 and is coming to the Portland Chinatown Museum.

Don't Edit

A Portlander in the 1970s explores one of several tunnels found beneath streets in Portland's Old Town. This one is under 23 NW 3rd Ave.

One of the reasons Portland in the late 19th century and early 20th century was called "Forbidden City of the West": Terrifying stories circulated of drunken men getting conked on the head at saloons, dropped through trapdoors and dragged through secret tunnels to the river. They woke to find themselves serving as oceangoing slave crew. This was called "Shanghaiing."

Remnants of some of those "Shanghai tunnels" are still down there under Old Town Chinatown.

Don't Edit

Part of an old "Shanghai tunnel" in the basement of Mama Mia's Trattoria at 439 SW Second Ave.

How bad was the Shanghaiing problem in Portland? One estimate put the number of people "Shanghai'd" each year at around 3,000.

"Except," points out Atlas Obscura, "that it almost certainly didn't happen. Fantastic legends abound, but the level of truth in most of these stories remains extremely questionable. While the tunnels were certainly used as housing for immigrant workers and for some more illicit purposes such as opium dens and drinking during Prohibition, they were not in fact used for 'Shanghaiing,' despite their name."

Don't Edit

One of Portland's Shanghai-tunnel tours begins in front of Hobo's Restaurant.

Portland historian Barney Blalock says a few men probably did get Shanghai'd in Portland back in the day, but that it surely didn't involve the tunnels under Old Town Chinatown. Those were busy being used for other, more profitable purposes.

"They were built by Chinese back in the days when Chinatown was the center of gang activity related to the different tongs," Blalock wrote in a 2013 blog post. "The gambling dens, brothels, and opium parlors of Chinatown were connected to separate labyrinths, with steel doors, trapdoors leading to secret stairways, and tunnels for escape into far alleyways. These were security measures designed for dealing with both rival tongs and police raids."

Don't Edit

Portland police officers search a gambling den in the 1940s.

Illegal gambling thrived in Chinatown (and other Portland neighborhoods) in the first half of the 20th century. The underground industry was known as the "Red Vice Kingdom." There were periodic efforts to shut down the gambling dens, but many of them were protected by the police.

At 110 Southwest Third Avenue in the 1930s, to offer just one example, a storefront bore the inscription, "Hop Lee, Merchant Tailor." You would not find a tailor there -- at least not one who worked on the premises. Gamblers walked through that front room (empty, save for a lookout/fake tailor), down a dark hallway and into a kitchen. At the back of the kitchen they'd find a door that looked like it was for a pantry. It was a heavy, steel-reinforced door, and you had to ring a buzzer to gain admittance. Inside was a craps table and three blackjack tables. A sign on the wall said the place closed at 1 a.m. That was only a suggestion.

The operation was two blocks from the central police station.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Immigrants brought practices and traditions with them from China, often turning them into successful businesses. The photo above shows Chinese herbs preparations from contents kept in cigar boxes.

Don't Edit

In the 1950s, Wayne Fong was a Portland underworld figure reportedly working with a drug syndicate in China.

Fong, wrote The Oregonian in a description of the above photo, "is said to be associated in the operation of this night spot, reputedly a gambling establishment."

Don't Edit

Wayne Fong became an object of public fascination in 1954 after the disappearance of 16-year-old Diane Hank, who was babysitting his children when last seen.

Through coverage of Wayne's and his wife Sherry's trials, appeals and retrials over the next four years, Portland newspaper readers learned about the dangers of Chinatown: heroin and prostitution, miscegenation and violence and the loss of innocence.

In the photo above, Wayne and Sherry are being arrested for Hank's murder. Sherry has turned away from the news photographer's camera.

The Fongs ultimately overcame the murder charges -- Hank's death most likely was the result of accidental barbiturate poisoning. But Wayne was soon arrested again, and in 1958 he was sentenced to 20 years in prison for dealing heroin. He died behind bars in 1976.

-- Read more about the Diane Hank case

Don't Edit

"Baby contest" participants in 1952 included 3-year-old twins Jean and John Lai.

A "Chinese baby contest" was staged in 1952 as part of Chinatown's Dragon festival. "Colorful costumes worn by youngsters are authentic Chinese design," The Oregonian wrote. "Most children were solemn, few cried."

The festival proved immensely popular. "Outside, in a street barricaded to traffic," the newspaper added, "dozens of concession booths and carnival attractions kept the jam-packed crowd of visitors occupied."

Don't Edit

While in Portland in 1975 for the National Convention of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance, publisher S.K. Lai announced that his San Francisco-based Chinese Times would begin also publishing in English. The newspaper was the largest Chinese-language publication in the U.S.

"Many modern Chinese-Americans need an interpreter to even talk to their parents," Lai said. "The Times must keep up with the times."

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Rickashaw Charlie's was a popular restaurant and nightclub in Chinatown for years.

"Why an 'a' has been inserted in 'Rickashaw' is beyond me and I forgot to ask the co-owner who showed me around, Lefty Hansen, a matinee idol-type with an ingratiating manner," an Oregonian critic wrote shortly after the restaurant opened in 1966. "He was very proud of the 'rickshaw-kind' dining booths and of the occidental-oriental blended motif of the Coolie Lounge, which has night-club entertainment."

Don't Edit

Rickashaw Charlie's "featured a mix of Cantonese and American food, and the lounge was the place for stiff drinks and live piano nightly," The Oregonian's Grant Butler recently wrote of the defunct restaurant's 1960s and '70s heyday. "Rickashaw Charlie's became embroiled in scandal in the 1980s, when it was the focus of a cocaine-trafficking investigation, and the cozy relationship between owner Robert Lee and Portland Police Chief Penny Harrington and her husband made headlines. Lee sold the business in 1986 to pay legal expenses after he was convicted of conspiring to deal cocaine."

House of Louie took over the space, but it closed earlier this year after 30 years there, leaving Chinatown without a single dim sum restaurant.

Don't Edit

For years Fong Chong & Co. was the place to go for "good barbecue" and hard-to-find Asian food products, from dried banana flower and fish bladders to Japanese instant noodles.

The store's customers, Harold Fong said in 1966, are "Americans and Chinese, from all over."

Don't Edit

By the 1970s, Chinatown wasn't what it used to be.

With an air of resignation, Fong Chong & Co. proprietor Harold Fong showed a reporter around the neighborhood. Wrote the visitor:

" 'Now,' [Harold Fong] says, with an ironic chuckle that is barely a whisper, 'two stores.' Palms up, to explain: that's life. 'Chinatown now.' He shifts his feet to face me directly. 'What did you expect to find?'"

Don't Edit

"Few Portlanders have had more impact than this man of Japanese ancestry, banished as a teenager from his American home during World War II," The Oregonian's Gordon Oliver wrote after Bill Naito died in 1996 at age 70.

Naito, who avoided an internment camp during World War II by moving in with relatives in Salt Lake City, graduated from Reed College and the University of Chicago. In the 1960s he moved into property development, especially of neglected historic buildings in Old Town.

Said former Portland Development Commission director Patrick LaCrosse: "The glass was always half full to him."

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Years before Donald Trump became president and instituted a crackdown on illegal immigration, law enforcement targeted Portland's Chinatown.

In the photo above, an immigration officer carrying handcuffs chases a suspected illegal immigrant. The suspect and 39 others were arrested in the coordinated raid in Old Town Chinatown.

Don't Edit

Firefighters battle a fire at Hung Far Low Restaurant in 1980.

A three-alarm fire in 1980 gutted the beloved, 52-year-old Hung Far Low restaurant at 112 N.W. Fourth Ave. The accidental fire, The Oregonian reported, "was sparked when a gas burner in the kitchen was left on under a wok-style fry pan by a workman." The restaurant was closed and empty when the fire started.

Don't Edit

Just 18 hours after firefighters had put out a fire at Hung Far Low restaurant in 1980, a second blaze broke out in the building. Officials said damage from the fires added up to more than $200,000.

Don't Edit

The Hung Far Low restaurant launched in 1928 at Northwest Fourth Avenue and Couch Street and quickly became a local favorite.

"The food is nourishing, tasty, plenty," wrote a newspaper critic in 1966 while trying to capture the Chinatown attitude with his prose. "Even you can afford it. The service isn't automaton, but you won't starve waiting. The place isn't jazzy, but it's clean and comfortable."

The restaurant decamped in 2005, but the iconic sign remains on the 1916 building.

Don't Edit

The famous Hung Far Low sign.

Titillating? It's Cantonese for "Red Flower Restaurant."

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Tuck Lung was a popular Chinese grocery and restaurant in Chinatown.

"Tuck Lung serves Chinese lunches from noon to 5 p.m., Mondays through Saturdays," The Oregonian wrote in 1966. "It is the only place in town that daily serves Hom Bow (steamed bun with barbecue pork filling), Dull Sah Bow (steamed bun with sweet black bean paste), Dim Sum (Chinese meatball wrapped in noodle skin) and Har Gow (shrimp and mushroom filling)."

Don't Edit

In 1978, the Tuck Lung grocery and restaurant moved down the street to a new building at Northwest Fourth and Davis.

Tuck Lung closed in 1993 and the building is now vacant, though redevelopment plans are being considered.

Don't Edit

"Portland's Skid Road is transforming into Old Town, where the byword is coexistence," The Oregonian wrote as the district's transformation began to take shape. "Among the area's elite, slummers and bereft, the trend is toward tidying up."

Don't Edit

Crowds gather at the dedication of the Portland Chinatown Gateway in 1986.

Don't Edit

Mayor Bud Clark, the Portland Development Commission's Pat LaCrosse and the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association's Gene Chin place a time capsule near the Chinatown Gate.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

In 1994, a court agreement brought down the Cindy's Adult Books sign behind Chinatown's gateway.

"At last," the Oregonian wrote, "it is safe to take a picture of your family in front of the China gate."

Don't Edit

AP

This Oct. 4, 2013, photo, shows the entry to Portland's Chinatown. The vacant lot where the building housing Cindy's Adult Books had been became the home of the controversial Right to Dream Too homeless camp, which was relocated last year to the industrial eastside.

Don't Edit

"The lion dance," The Oregonian wrote in 1986, "symbolizes luck and prosperity."

In the photo above, dancers prepare for a Chinese New Year celebration in Chinatown.

Don't Edit

In 1975, Colburn, Sheldon and Kaji Architects received an "award of intent" in part for its "influence in saving the historic facade of Alco Hotel in Old Town."

"The character of a city is a fragile thing," awards juror Hugh Hardy said. "If you take away too much of the past, its character never can be replaced."

Don't Edit

Old Town Chinatown's efforts to remake its public image took time to bear fruit.

The Burnside Street Fair, The Oregonian wrote in 1979, "attracted few customers, as a spectator in a Northwest Couch Street window observed. Some businesses extended their hours, and food and crafts were sold by vendors [at the fair]. The sponsor was Burnside Consortium, which includes service agencies, residents and businesses."

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Before the short-lived Burnside Street Fair, there was Autumnfest.

In 1976, three girls took in live music at the festival in Old Town. The following year, Dorothy Lawson McCall, mother of former Oregon Gov. Tom McCall, served as grand marshal of Autumnfest's parade.

She represented "the past," she said with a laugh.

Don't Edit

In 1981, Portland firefighters battled an Old Town blaze involving an antique trolley. The trolley was on display behind locked gates in an alley linking Northwest Couch and Davis streets. "Flames reached 100 feet high," The Oregonian reported.

Don't Edit

Built in 1910-11, the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association Building at 315 N.W. Davis Street has served as a Chinese school, museum and social hall for decades. A renovation was undertaken in the early 1980s, shortly before the above photo was taken. The CCBA is still located in the building, which the organization calls "a shared resource for all Chinese people, no matter where they come from."

Don't Edit

Teal Oka-Wong, 19, is congratulated by runners-up Judy Hong (left) and Sandra Leong after being crowned Miss Chinatown of Oregon 1981 at the Red Lion Motor Inn at Jantzen Beach.

Don't Edit

A "duckling dance" was part of a 1980 celebration marking the start of remodeling of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association's hall on Northwest Davis Street.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

The photo above shows a film crew working on a false building front at 127 N.W. Third Ave. in Portland. The facade was part of a street set for the 1990 movie "Come See the Paradise," starring Dennis Quaid. The area around Northwest Third Avenue and Davis Street stood in for Los Angeles' World War II-era Little Tokyo district.

Don't Edit

In 1989, actors and film crew for "Come See the Paradise" shot scenes between Davis and Everett streets along Northwest Third Avenue in Portland. The street had been made to look like 1940s Los Angeles.

Don't Edit

Portland's Chinatown in 1994.

"The neighborhood once known as Portland's Skid Road is changing," The Oregonian wrote in 1994. "Once a crime-ridden enclave for the down-and-out, the Old Town/Chinatown community has become the rarest of neighborhoods -- a place where people of all backgrounds have learned to live and work together."

Don't Edit

Kuang Zhen Yan designed Portland's Classical Chinese Garden, now known as Lan Su Chinese Garden. The walled garden opened in 2000.

Don't Edit

The pond in Portland's Chinese garden offers a reflection of one of the property's buildings.

In 1999, The Oregonian's Randy Gragg wrote about the work on Portland's garden being done in Suzhou, China.

"With the concentration and dexterity of surgeons, some 50 artisans dressed in mechanics smocks and worn sports jackets are quietly carving, molding and assembling thousands of intricately crafted architectural details -- what will be the parts to Portland's classical Chinese garden."

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Tourist Constantine Gilca, from Romania, stands on the bridge between the Hall of Brocade Clouds and the Flowers Bathing in Spring Rain at Portland's Chinese Garden.

Don't Edit

Ivy Lin in front of the Suey Sing Association in 2008.

Filmmaker Ivy Lin, who grew up in Taiwan, made a documentary about the history of Portland's Chinatown and the efforts to preserve its identity and memories. The film, called "Pig Roast & Tank of Fish," premiered at the 2008 Northwest Film & Video Festival.

Don't Edit

In 2009, star chef Andy Ricker opened the upscale restaurant Ping in Chinatown. GQ magazine soon called it one of the U.S.'s best new eateries.

Ricker eventually left the restaurant to concentrate on his Pok Pok franchise, and Ping, though popular, closed in 2013.

Don't Edit

The view from Ping's main window. The Oregonian honored Ping as its "Rising Star" restaurant in 2009.

Don't Edit

A 100-feet-long dragon carried by 21 people was paraded from Portland's Chinatown to the Oregon Historical Society in celebration of the Lunar New Year in 2016. The dragon was a gift to the city from Taiwan, sent to commemorate the 1986 dedication of Portland's Chinatown gate.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

The 2016 parade from Portland's Chinatown to the Oregon Historical Society also celebrated the opening of two exhibits at OHS that detailed both the Chinese American experience and Portland's historic Chinatowns.

Don't Edit

The 100-feet-long dragon stopped traffic and brought out spectators during its 2016 trek across downtown Portland.

Don't Edit

Restore Oregon

"Every year nonprofit Restore Oregon releases a list of places it feels are the 'most endangered' in the state -- landmarks with historic or cultural importance in need of some restoration and rehabilitation," The Oregonian's Jamie Hale writes.

In 2014, the list included the 2-story Wong Laundry Building.

Don't Edit

Restore Oregon

The Wong Laundry building at 221 N.W. Third Ave. opened in 1908. Restore Oregon writes that it "played a significant role for the city's burgeoning Asian-American population."

The Wong family operated a laundry at the site from the 1930s until 1975 when the building suffered from a devastating fire after someone poured kerosene into an exterior laundry chute.

Don't Edit

Restore Oregon

Restore Oregon has called the Wong Laundry Building "a significant historic structure in imminent danger of being lost to hard times, development pressures, demolition or neglect."

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Moovel COO Sadhana Shenoy and CEO Nat Parker at the company's headquarters in Old Town Chinatown.

The Overland Warehouse, at Northwest Fourth and Davis, was built in 1889 to store dry goods. Soon thereafter it served as a bunkhouse for Chinese laborers.

It was owned for a time by the Suey Sing Society, a Chinese benevolent association. As Chinatown struggled economically late in the 20th century, the building housed a strip club, the windows on the top floor boarded up.

But the Old Town Chinatown district is now on an upswing, and the rehabbed Overland/Suey Sing building is an example of the change.

In 2017, it became home base for Moovel, a high-tech subsidiary of Daimler.

Don't Edit

Rock-patterned walkways at Portland's Lan Su Chinese Garden draw visitors into Chinatown's rich legacy.

-- Douglas Perry

Don't Edit

Portland Chinatown Museum

The photography exhibit "Made in Chinatown USA: Portland" opened this month at the new Portland Chinatown Museum.

Photographer Dean Wong says the exhibit depicts "what's left of Portland's Chinatown ... To me it's like the Alamo, you know. This is our last stand."

Don't Edit

More

Want to dive deeper into Portland's endlessly fascinating history? Read on...

-- Portland gloried in its sexy, secret gambling dens in the 1930s: Take our walking tour

-- Why a Portland vice scandal in the 1950s riveted the nation

-- 1970s Portland was smutty, corrupt and dance-crazed

-- Portland in the 1980s: Drug gangs, skinheads loomed ... and also something special

-- Portland in the 1990s: dirty, weird, a place to disappear

-- Iconic Portland photos from the 19th century to 1940s

-- Photos of North Williams Ave. through the years

-- How the Hawthorne district remade itself while retaining its character, history