![]() The Chinese were not the only ones to visit Chinatown’s gambling houses-white patrons also came to take a risk on their favorite games of chance including roulette. Denver’s Chinatown was a destination for Chinese from all over the state where they would try their luck in any one of many gambling establishments. Famous throughout the American West for their games of chance (such as cowpie poker), the Chinese were equally famous for their willingness to risk their hard-earned money. One of the few recreational outlets available to the Chinese was gambling. Chinese prostitutes were considered to be more perverse and morally degenerate than their white counterparts. While this sort of behavior was considered “entertainment” for whites, it was viewed as deviant in the Chinese. Ĭhinese bachelors (whether they had a wife in China or not) indulged in frequenting brothels, gambling, drinking, and smoking opium. During Prohibition, there was also rampant bootlegging. It was considered “an alien place, inhabited by people whose racial and cultural characteristics set them apart….a mysterious place that captured the imagination…”. Hop Alley was regarded as a notorious place, replete with brothels serviced by exotic women, gambling parlors frequented by glamorous people, and opium emporiums that catered to the drug cognoscenti. In 1914, the Harrison Narcotics Act made opium illegal. The Chinese were most likely portrayed as addicts as a way to malign the minority since they were now considered “surplus labor” with the completion of the transcontinental railroad. Most of the Chinese in Denver who did smoke were social smokers, including Denver’s first Chinese policeman, Louis Johnson, who admitted to smoking when he had a headache. Dens on Arapahoe St catered to white women as well as the Chinese. Opium dens flourished in Denver’s Chinatown, in part because of the large number of white patrons. The Chinese “were thought to indulge in thought to indulge in immoral behavior, including opium smoking, high-stakes gambling, illicit sex, and presumably a few other vices unknown to the general public.” They were described by the local press as a social menace who exerted a corrupting influence on innocent Denverites. “The number of confirmed opium eaters in the United States is estimated at the terrible total of 100,000…The opium eater is, of all forms of humanity given over to destruction, the most to be pitied, and those who administer to the gratification of his vice are the most to be condemned.” The irony is, while opium was legal in Denver in the nineteenth century, it was illegal in China. Many Americans believed the Chinese to be opium fiends. By 1880, there were 17 known opium dens in Denver, 12 in Hop Alley where one could “suck the bamboo” or “hit the pipe”. The era’s newspapers and yellow journalism tended to sensationalize the number of opium dens and other vices that were actually located in the area. “Hop” referred to opium and “Alley” was in reference to where the entrances to buildings were. Denver’s Chinatown earned the moniker “Hop Alley” because it was seen as a place where you could have an “exotic experience”. It was located right next to the Red-Light District on Holladay Street (now known as Market). Originally called Chinaman’s Row, Denver’s Chinatown was established around 1870 between 15 th and 17 th Streets. Wewatta Street is named after another one of his wives.) (Some say that the name Wazee may mean “street of the Chinese” in Cantonese however, William McGaa, one of Denver’s early settlers, named the street after one of his Indian wives. “Immigration of Chinese labor is eminently calculated to hasten the development and early prosperity of the Territory, by supplying the demands of cheap labor.” Near the end of 1870, there were 42 Chinese living in Denver along Wazee St. In 1870, the Colorado Territorial Legislature passed a resolution encouraging Chinese to immigrate to the area as a means of meeting its chronic shortage of laborers. At its peak, Colorado was home to roughly 1,400 Chinese immigrants, most of whom lived in Denver. Denver’s Chinatown was the largest in the Rocky Mountain West. The boundaries of Denver’s old Chinatown were approximately 15 th to 20 th and from Market to Wazee. Today, nothing remains of Denver’s Chinatown other than a commemorative plaque near Blake and 20 th. Denver’s Chinatown was located in LoDo, near today’s Ballpark, and was derogatorily called “Hop Alley”.
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