Chinatown History Project
Historic SF Chinatown Landmarks

The first field trip that we went for the California Uncovered Project was the Chinatown landmarks. We went around Chinatown and visited numerous historical places. The place that was historical and we all know well is the Chinatown Branch Library. It was built in 1921, and was renamed from the North Beach Library at 1958. The second place that we went was Gordon J. Lau Elementary School. It was built in 1951. It used to be called Commodore Stockton. After that, we went to Ross Alley and went into the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory. The fourth place we went was to the Bank of Canton. It was really old and had no memorial dragon statues in the front. After the old bank, we went to another old place that haven't been rebuilt at all. It was the Old St. Mary Church. It was made of tough stones, so it held up at the earthquake. We also to the Old St. Mary Square and saw the names of the people that helped in the wars. There were a lot of memorial statues. Another place that was really important was the Chinatown gate. “All that is Heaven is for the good of the people. This was a famous quote that is written at the gate. Other than places, we also went to parks. We went to the Chinese playground. There was a very famous painting there. The last place that we went to was the Cameron House. The Cameron house was a really old place. Even the bricks that were burned in the fire was recovered and built again in the Cameron house. It was really interesting to see the bricks there. And that was the end of the Chinatown landmark tour. We really did learn a lot. Without this tour, we would have never known that Chinatown was so important.