Made in Chinese America
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The Parrott Block was erected in 1852. The three-story building, built by Chinese labor, was of granite blocks brought from China. It was one of the first stone buildings in the city. (As late as 1869 only six of more than 20,000 structures in San Francisco were of stone.)
The 1906 earthquake and fire did little damage to the building, which soon thereafter reopened for business. In 1926, it was demolished to make way for the Financial Center Building, and later transformed to the Omni Hotel.
Historical Marker Database
Well-connected merchants of the Chinese Six Companies—a federation of mutual aid associations—decided to self-fund their own hospital.
In 1900, the year the bubonic plague hit San Francisco, Tung Wah Dispensary opened its doors to Chinatown residents, becoming the first Chinese-American medical facility in the continental U.S. A quarter-century later, it became the Chinese Hospital, which now has locations all over the Bay Area.
They Built Their Own Hospital
First Chinese American Billionaire
When the land now known as Kukui Gardens in Honolulu, Hawaii came up for acquisition in 1967, Clarence T.C. Ching (1912 - 1985) saw possibilities that others didn’t. The deal, which provided low-income housing for some 800 families, was a complicated one, with no opportunity for a meaningful return on investment for decades. What some might have seen as a fool’s errand, Ching saw as his legacy, his chance to make significant and long-lasting change. He established the Clarence T.C. Ching Foundation with a $10,000 cash donation and won the bid to purchase the land on behalf of the foundation.
Almost two dozen buildings and facilities now bear Clarence Ching’s name, from American Cancer Society, PBS Hawaii to the UH Athletic Complex, and from the Ching Gymnasium at Mary Knoll to the Learning and Technology Center at his alma mater, Saint Louis School. With grants ranging from a few thousand dollars to a million-plus, the foundation sees its goal as a simple one: continue the legacy created by Clarence Ching to support and give back to the community that gave him so much.
Clarence T.C. Ching Foundation
In 1910, with no financial backing from a bank, 170 early Chinese pioneers pooled their money to fund the construction of two twin buildings – the West and East Kong Yick Buildings (公益大廈 | "public benefit") – which would become the anchors of Seattle’s new Chinatown.
Also known as the Freeman Hotel, this building served as the cultural hub and living quarters for hundreds of Chinese, Japanese and Filipino immigrants who came to the United States in the pre-World War II era.
The building was largely abandoned since the 1970s, but was renovated in 2007 to serve as the new space for the Wing Luke Museum founded in 1966 in memory of Wing Chong Luke (1925-1965), the Assistant Attorney General, and the first Asian American to hold public office in the Pacific Northwest.
HIstory Link
Historians estimate that over 600 Chinese workers died in the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway in British Columbia. “Unlike white workers, injured Chinese workers were not provided access to the company hospital…”
Andrew Onderdonk (1848 - 1905) was a construction contractor, borned in New York City, who worked on several major projects in the West, including the San Francisco seawall in California and the Canadian Pacific Railway in British Columbia. Onderdonk got permission from the Canadian government to import Chinese workers from both California and China. He told the Canadian government that if he could not use Chinese workers, the railway could not be built.
Photo: Canadian Pacific Railway trestle bridge CP 354 at Mountain Creek, BC, c1900.