Locke (Walnut Grove, California)
by Suzanne Lo

Along Main Street, it did not feel like some ghost towns that dotted the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Instead, SUVs and shiny Harleys were parked on both sides of the street right in front of Al Wops, a restaurant known for its steaks and a popular hangout for motorcyclists. Walking just a few doors down is the Dai Loy Museum. Inside you could imagine the noisy gambling and lottery activities—one-room version of a Las Vegas casino. The gambling house has a back room for the locked safe and caged room for the first lottery, “bok gap piu,” which literally means Pigeon Lottery. On the edge of town is a one-room schoolhouse with a Chinese name plaque “Joe Shoong School.” National Dollar Store entrepreneur Joe Shoong built many Chinese language schools all over California. In front of the classroom, a portrait of the father of China Dr. Sun Yat Sen and the lyrics for the national song hung above the blackboard.

Dai Loy Museum

Joe Shoong Chinese School

Clarence Chu, the local general manager of several buildings, said that he lived there since the 1970s and stayed in hopes of preserving the history of Locke. His web site documents the cultural heritage of Locke, www.locketown.com. Serving as the local tour guide, he recommended the only Chinese eatery, Locke Garden Restaurant. Looking at the menu, it carried many of the dishes one sees in San Francisco Chinatown. The only twist was that it is bilingual in Spanish instead of Chinese.

Two history books on Locke are Peter C.Y. Leung’s One Day One Dollar: The Chinese Farming Experience in the Sacramento River Delta, California, and Bitter Melon: Inside America’s Last Rural Chinese Town written by Jeff Gillenkirk and James Motlow