Locke Historic District

Locke is a small river town on the Sacramento River levee in Sacramento County, California. Founded in 1915, it consists of about four blocks of one- and two-story commercial and residential buildings, with a single narrow main street one block from the levee. After a fire destroyed most of the Chinese section of Walnut Grove in 1915, a group of ten to twelve Chinese businessmen led by Charlie Lee Bing moved about a mile upstream onto land owned by the Locke family and established the town. The wooden, false-fronted buildings with balconies nearly touching across the street reflect the architecture of turn-of-the-century river towns. Many were unpainted and leaning, and most commercial space was unoccupied when described. The district was listed because it was seen as the last vestige of a Chinese community founded by people who helped build the transcontinental railroad and the Delta levees. Its residents were mainly elderly Chinese speakers of Cantonese, and no new building had been added in fifty years.