Colorado’s burgeoning 19th century Chinese communities were destroyed by racist legislation and riots. Now, the state is finally coming to terms with its past.
At the intersection of 16th Street Mall and Wazee Street in downtown Denver, locals are accustomed to hearing the echoes of baseball chants from nearby Coors Field. Long buried, and forgotten by most, are the ghosts of other cries. Amid the red-brick buildings at this exact location on October 31, 1880, white European rioters chased nearly 500 Chinese immigrants out of their businesses and homes, leaving one dead.
This marked the beginning of the end of the city’s Chinatown, but nearly a century and a half later, a project called Reimagining Denver’s Historic Chinatown, started by local Asian American associations, hopes to document the experiences of those who once called this part of the Rocky Mountains home. To understand why the Chinese left, it’s important to look at what drew them to the Centennial State in the first place.
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