California wildfire erases part of Chinese Camp’s Gold Rush history

CHINESE CAMP, Calif. — A wildfire in Tuolumne County this week left destruction beyond homes, consuming part of California’s Gold Rush history.

Chinese Camp, once a thriving community of thousands of Chinese miners who settled there in 1849, was caught in the fire’s path and is now in ruins.

“The Gold Rush, it attracted people from four corners of the world,” said Douglas Hsia of the Chinese American Heritage Network. He added that those miners were fleeing persecution and, in many cases, forced to band together.

Even before the fire, much of Chinese Camp’s original character was already gone.

“All the Chinese structures that were there are already gone. The only thing left from that period is probably the post office,” said David Lei with the Chinese Historical Society of America.

That post office, built in 1854, was badly damaged.

But the elementary school survived. Built in the 1970s with a pagoda-style roof to honor the town’s Chinese roots, the school is a rare surviving landmark.

Lei said much of what is known about Chinese Camp today comes from the school itself. “A lot of what we know about Chinese Camp was a school project of their elementary school science department, third to sixth grade. They studied the Chinese, they did the research, and they put out a pamphlet.”

Now, that pamphlet, along with the school and a few charred landmarks, is among the only reminders of a town once central to California’s Gold Rush story.

Chinese Camp was added to California’s Historical Landmarks list in 1949.

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