Chinatown - Nevada Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

The first Chinese came to the Comstock in the early 1860s after having worked on the Reese River Ditch project in Dayton, NV in the mid-1850s. Prejudice against them was prevalent at the time, due to their strange customs and traditions that was not understood by the rest of society. Consequently, they were denied rights that were taken for granted by the rest of the community. A provision in an early Virginia City mining document of 1859 stated: “No Chinaman shall hold a claim in this district.” When they were found working on the Virginia & Truckee Railroad in 1869, they were run off by local miners who then replaced them. Always industrious, the Chinese found work as gardeners, firewood haulers and household domestics. Several hundred were also employed in numerous laundries during Virginia city’s[sic] “Bonanza’” years. The population of Virginia City reached its zenith in the mid-1870s, when over 20,000 people resided on the Comstock. The census of 1875 recorded 1,331 Chinese living in Storey County at that time, 90% of which were males. By 1900 many Chinese relocated to San Francisco. Today this is all that remains of Virginia City’s Chinatown where its residents lived, prayed in Joss Houses and took recreation in opium dens.

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