{"id":3075,"date":"2026-07-27T12:33:41","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T12:33:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coloradospringsmoverss.com\/?p=3075"},"modified":"2026-07-27T12:33:41","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T12:33:41","slug":"denvers-chinatown-history-was-erased-for-decades-but-its-preservation-is-newly-relevant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coloradospringsmoverss.com\/?p=3075","title":{"rendered":"Denver\u2019s Chinatown history was erased for decades, but its preservation is newly relevant"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When Heather Clifton was a child, she would stand at her grandmother\u2019s bedside after dinners and parties and admire the matriarch\u2019s wooden curio cabinet. One day, when she was 13 or 14, her grandmother told her to pick an item out for herself, so Clifton selected a shiny gold ring with a big blue stone \u2014 which she still wears frequently.<\/p>\n

Read more \u2018Critically endangered\u2019 camel Hagrid dies at Denver Zoo<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never had it appraised but I probably should, because it might be valuable,\u201d said Clifton, a descendant of one of Denver\u2019s original Chinatown families.<\/p>\n

These families lived in what\u2019s now Lower Downtown from the 1860s through the 1940s, according to History Colorado, with their community blooming along Wazee between 15th and 17th streets, and later growing to include parts of Market between 15th and 20th streets.<\/p>\n

Now she\u2019s reappraising Chinatown at large.\u00a0Its rise and fall was dramatic, with a deadly riot in 1880 stoking anti-Chinese sentiment nationwide. But its erasure has been so complete that most people don\u2019t even know it existed, Clifton said. All that remains are a couple of plaques and a mural that is a few blocks from Coors Field.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough Denver is usually not the first city to come to mind when one considers the history of Chinese immigration to the United States, the establishment of the city\u2019s Chinatown and its subsequent destruction had a profound impact on the history of race and immigration policy in the country,\u201d History Colorado researchers wrote in their 2019 paper \u201cThe Rise and Fall of Denver\u2019s Chinatown,\u201d noting the national publicity the riot received in 1880.<\/p>\n

Drawn here by railroad and mining jobs, Denver\u2019s Chinese immigrants quickly set up businesses that catered to both their own community and the local population; they had a vigorous work ethic, something that often defines immigrant communities, according to History Colorado. But with only a few hundred permanent residents at its height \u2014 and because most of its buildings were demolished due to urban renewal projects in the late 20th century \u2014 even people with direct ties to the area have been in the dark about its history.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t really know about Chinatown when I was a child,\u201d Clifton said, noting that her grandmother lived in one of the few brick buildings that have survived, at 2019 Market St. That changed when she and her cousin, Linda Lung, began researching its history.<\/p>\n

Lung, who also traces her family directly to Denver\u2019s Chinatown, and Clifton are working to enshrine the neighborhood\u2019s culture. Through oral histories, family archives, walking tours, historic preservation applications, partnerships with Asian American and Pacific Islander organizations, and a major exhibit at History Colorado Center, they\u2019ve increasingly brought to light the struggles, triumphs and daily rhythms of the former neighborhood.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI have lived here my entire life, and I had always wondered why we didn\u2019t have a traditional Chinatown,\u201d said chef Tommy Lee, whose parents moved to Denver in the 1960s from Hong Kong, in a 2022 Denver Post interview. \u201cI started doing research and I found out there was actually a Chinatown in Denver.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lee named his restaurant Hop Alley \u2014 after the nickname for Denver\u2019s Chinatown, and the stereotype of opium-smoking Chinese \u2014 and it\u2019s a knowing riff.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy family never called it Hop Alley,\u201d Lung said of the area, whose denizens watched out for one another amid threats from white residents. Those culminated in an 1880 anti-Chinese race riot that left resident Look Young dead by hanging, dozens of Chinese residents seriously injured, and most of their businesses burned and destroyed.<\/p>\n

Residents rebuilt, but with anti-Chinese sentiment in overdrive after decades of racist news coverage and discriminatory federal laws, the community dwindled through the early part of the 20th century, and the Chinese culture that had defined the area was quickly forgotten after that.<\/p>\n

Read more Today in History: July 27, horrific kidnapping, killing leads to \u2018America\u2019s Most Wanted\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

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Urban renewal further erased structures as Denver\u2019s boom-and-bust cycle rolled along. Out of the 200 or so buildings that comprised the neighborhood, only 19 remain, owing to a spate of demolition by the city of Denver that started in the 1960s to make space for more development, said Samantha Martin, History Colorado Center\u2019s Temple Buell associate curator of architecture.<\/p>\n

Like the Latino population that was displaced in the 1970s from what\u2019s now the Auraria campus, as well as immigrant and Indigenous communities across the state, Chinatown\u2019s residents found that outside pressure forged lasting bonds that united them through periods of chaos. Understanding that history is newly important as the cycle threatens to repeat itself, they said, with residents of the La Alma\/Lincoln Park neighborhood (many of them already displaced from Auraria 50 years ago) fearing displacement due to a new Denver Broncos stadium in nearby Burnham Yard.<\/p>\n

Gentrification, increased taxes, and traffic are usually forced upon working-class, immigrant and non-white residents when these types of land grabs occur, said Nolbert Chavez, who\u2019s writing his Ph.D. dissertation on how communities of color can move forward with institutions after displacement and urban development. As a regent for the University of Colorado Denver, Chavez\u2019s office is located in what\u2019s believed to be Denver\u2019s oldest residence, at 1050 9th St. \u2014 also known as the Centennial House due to its construction in 1876 (the same year Colorado became a state).<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t really tell the full story (of Denver) without telling our story,\u201d Chavez said. \u201cRather than glossing over or hiding or downplaying it, we should embrace it and make something beautiful about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Chavez, that\u2019s included award-winning historic preservation wins, making good on promised scholarships for displaced residents, and other initiatives that seek to celebrate the lives of the hundreds of people and businesses who were pushed out to make way for the Auraria Higher Education Campus.<\/p>\n

Remembering the original Auraria residents and Denver\u2019s Chinatown is crucial because we\u2019re still dealing with some of the same dynamics today, Chavez said. Lies and stereotypes about race, class and cult85ure prompted the violence in Chinatown in 1880, with a reported 3,000 whites attacking every Chinese person they saw. But there was no evidence that Chinese residents engaged in risky behavior any more than Eurocentric immigrants and residents.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur families dealt with opium and prostitution, because that\u2019s just what they did,\u201d Lung said. \u201cBut whites would come through because they saw Chinatown as exotic and mysterious, and they liked the opium and gambling and prostitution and spectacular fireworks and focus on food. They were giving it that reputation themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Resurfacing the full history of Denver\u2019s Chinatown and the city\u2019s displaced residents in general requires lots of time and resources, Lung and Clifton said, and the work has only just begun. But whatever the future holds, they don\u2019t want Denver to forget the regular people who lived and worked there.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are ideas for an art history project, for reactivating the alleyway, for designing new spaces and concepts,\u201d said Leyuan Li, assistant professor of architecture at the University of Colorado Denver, at the History Colorado Center exhibit on Chinatown. He and his students joined with the Colorado Asian Pacific United group and others on the exhibit, \u201cWhere Is Denver\u2019s Chinatown? Stories Remembered, Reclaimed, Reimagined,\u201d which closed last fall.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we started hearing about the real stories of our families, we were amazed by how resilient they were,\u201d Lung said. \u201cThey were redlined and forced to live there, but they didn\u2019t mind. There was actually safety in numbers and other businesses, so they could get items they wanted \u2014 food, clothing, and just that sense of community you couldn\u2019t find elsewhere. It\u2019s a history that\u2019s worth remembering.\u201d<\/p>\n

Get more Colorado news by signing up for our daily Your Morning Dozen email newsletter.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read more Why Colorado is poised to lead the federal real estate pivot<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Formerly hidden, Denver’s Chinatown history resurfaces with lessons for modern development<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3074,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colorado-news","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nDenver\u2019s Chinatown history was erased for decades, but its preservation is newly relevant - Colorado Springs Moverss<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/coloradospringsmoverss.com\/?p=3075\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Denver\u2019s Chinatown history was erased for decades, but its preservation is newly relevant - 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