The Chinese Workforce in Napa Valley

The following two articles written by Mariam Hansen, compiled from stories in the St. Helena Star:

• Chinese Heritage in St. Helena. At one time St. Helena was home to about 500 Chinese laborers and merchants. In 1868 the Napa Valley Railroad construction crews reached St. Helena. They needed large amounts of gravel from the gravel quarry to lay down the base for the tracks. The need for a large labor force to move gravel brought the first large group of Chinese immigrants to the upper Napa Valley.

• Chinatown in the 1870s is a listing of events in the news from 1850 until 1945. In those days, when a visitor approached St. Helena on Main Street and looked to the west at Charter Oak, Chinatown was visible, set back from the road at a distance. Chinatown consisted of two rows of shabby wooden buildings made of scrap lumber, with a temple at the western end of the village. Each building had a store in front. Sam Sing Lung kept a store and also managed a labor force, farming out “coolies” as laborers.