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photo by Donald Kinney
The discovery of gold in California was the easy part--the hard part was getting it out of the ground. The solution was to import multitudes of Chinese workers who were willing to work for very little money.
In addition to laboring in the mines, the Chinese were responsible for building many of California's first railroads, roads, bridges, canals and levies. They also proved to be exceptionally good farmers, although I'm pretty sure the White-Man pocketed most of their profits. Discrimination against the Chinese was rampant.
click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney
Tomorrow I'll be showing you part of the larger town of Isleton, just to the south of Locke. These two towns are in the area of California known as the Sacramento Delta, farmland reclaimed from a vast estuary of low-lying land with a network of dykes and levies built by the hard and underpaid labor of Chinese immigrants.
Preceding the founding of Locke the town of Walnut Grove a few miles away had been their home, but in 1915, the Chinese section of town caught fire and many were left homeless. Because the Chinese were excluded from owning property back in those days, an industrious Chinese businessman convinced the local white landowner to lease him the property on which Locke was established. Soon a fully functional small town was built, complete with restaurants, schools, gambling parlors, hardware and grocery stores.
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photo by Donald Kinney
In the 1930's the curiously named "Al the Wops" restaurant and bar was the first white owned business in town. "Wops" is what the Chinese called whites (((don't worry, we called the Chinese worse))), but nobody seems to know exactly why Al used the derogatory term in naming his establishment.
On weekends Al the Wops is a popular hangout for the rowdy motorcycle crowd. Look closely at the sign -- between the "W" and the "O" is a bullet-hole.
The menu at Al the Wops is basically steak and booze, but I understand the place is famous for having a jar of peanut butter on each table which you are supposed to slather over your steak.
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photo by Donald Kinney
Curiously, I found the graffiti scratched into the siding of the building across the street from "The Wops", rather interesting.
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2 comments:
Another terrific place for photos. I definitely need to visit there.
Peanut Butter on steak...now that's a new one on me.
Hi PHOTOWANNABE SUE -- Yeah, I guess where you live isn't all that far away. They've got the bridge at Ryde closed for repairs and painting so that complicates the routes a bit... But you know, in that area, to the south, is the Montezuma Hills, between Rio Vista and Fairfield, with hundreds of wind-generators. I've always loved photographing the low rolling hills. They grow a lot of wheat and raise a whole lot of sheep in that area. A place to drive for miles and never see another soul.
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