Locke residents plan to create history museum

It took a liberal spritzing of WD-40 and a hefty shove, but Clarence Chu finally loosed the stubborn lock and shoved open the door of the old boardinghouse on the edge of Locke.

Air in the building, which has been vacant for ages, is stale. Boarded-up windows and overgrown ivy fracture what light shines into the empty rooms.

Chu, along with others who manage the town, always imagined this building as a museum, a place to pay tribute to the Chinese workers who settled the tiny community in 1915.

He's already mounted a modest exhibit on the walls: warped photos of hand tools used by Chinese laborers, an undated picture of Bing Lee, one of Locke's founders -- anything he had that would help others to see what he sees.

"A lot of people look at the aging buildings and they don't know the hidden treasures (behind them)," Chu said. "What better than to have a facility to publicize the hard work of those Chinese immigrants?"

Up until a few years ago, Chu, 52, owned all of Locke. Over the years his vision for this 90-year-old town has stretched from wholesale structural redevelopment to a more subtle cultural redevelopment. None of his plans have come to be. This one, however, just might.

He recently sold the old boardinghouse to the California Department of State Parks, which plans to create the museum with the help of the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Authority.

"This is a collaboration of two agencies and the local residents, and I think it's a good example of how we can all work together to get some neat things done," said Scott Nakaji, a State Parks district superintendent.

It's unclear what the museum might contain. Christina Fa, member of the Locke Management Association, which governs the town, hopes it will host their archive of census-like data, and perhaps oral and video histories of former residents.

"One of the keys to revitalizing Locke will be establishing this museum, which will preserve the history of early Locke residents," she said. "Their stories are stories of those who helped create California."

Locke was formed after a fire tore through the Chinatown in neighboring Walnut Grove. Residents moved up the road onto property owned by George Locke and established the community, the only surviving rural Chinese American town in the country.

The town, about 30 miles south of Sacramento, now is largely a living relic whose glory days are remembered by few.

Ping Lee

Some of those memories belong to Ping Lee. Anyone with an interest in Locke's history knows to knock on his door.

The son of founder Bing Lee, Ping Lee was the town's unofficial mayor for about 30 years, settling marriage disputes and lighting the street lamps.

Lee, 87, remembers the now-ramshackle buildings when they were almost new. He also recalls having a sit-down with the town's first non-Chinese residents and telling them the way it was going to be. He then watched as Locke's original Chinese population dwindled to little more than the handful it is today.

A museum, he said, will be a fitting way to tell his town's story.

"What I consider Locke now is a living memorial to the Chinese people," he said. "(I support) anything that shows Locke for what it is."

The museum's lower floor will likely be used for exhibits. The top floor will be reserved for office space for the Locke Management Association. State and federal grant money -- about $950,000 -- will pay to stabilize the building.

"Like every building in Locke, it's in some danger of collapse," said Stephen Young, community development director for Sacramento County.

The end product is still a few years away. The grant money won't pay for much more than righting the building, Young said. The hunt is on for more money.

None of this would have been possible, however, without a piece of Locke's recent history.

In December, residents were allowed to buy their own land for the first time, giving Chu the opportunity to set museum plans in motion.

The California Alien Land Act of 1913 barred Chinese residents from owning land, so the town's original settlers built their homes on Locke's land. Though the act was declared unconstitutional in 1952, Locke residents, regardless of race, were still unable to own their land because it hadn't undergone the costly process of subdivision.

Chu bought Locke from its namesake family in the 1970s. He sold it in 2002 to the housing and redevelopment authority. Last year, the agency finally sold the land to those who had been living on it for years.

Once Chu got the boardinghouse back, he was able to sell it to the Department of State Parks -- a necessary step to get government grants.

He figures he could have started a museum himself, but he'd never envisioned a low-budget operation -- the only thing he'd be able to pull off alone.

He already owns the Dai Loy Museum, a small outfit that re-creates a former gambling house shut down in the 1950s. But that's just a small part of the tale he wants to tell.

"I wanted to make sure this was first-class," he said. "Pretty soon, nobody will be able to answer any questions about the town's history, and the history of the town is so big."

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