Bringing back Denver’s Chinatown: Community volunteers reinstall historic marker

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A coalition of Asian-American and Pacific Islander leaders and allies are working to bring back the history and legacy of Denver’s historic Chinatown, which was destroyed in 1880 and again in 1940. They’ve recently installed historic markers, murals and traffic bollards commemorating important moments in Denver Chinatown’s history. Photo: Andrea Kramar, Rocky Mountain PBS
DENVER  —  Months after it was stolen, organizers responsible for commemorating Denver’s historic Chinatown have replaced a historic marker, noting the location of a culturally significant site for Colorado’s Chinese Americans. 

In total, the Colorado Asian Pacific United (CAPU) coalition placed three markers throughout downtown Denver in the summer of 2023 to commemorate the boundaries of Denver’s Chinatown. 

But several months after their dedication, vandals took one of the markers at 1520 16th Street, leaving just a cement block and sharp shards.  
 
“We had put out a call to the public and media which said, ‘If anyone has it, please just return it. We just want it back,’” said Joie Ha, CAPU’s executive director. “Unfortunately, we never got it back.”
 
“Our Chinatown has been in a lot of ways completely erased, and this marker being taken away felt like another act of erasure,” she said.  
 
CAPU started a GoFundMe to raise $12,000 to replace the marker, and raised more than $10,000.
 
“We tried to make it sturdier so it’s harder to be taken down. We added some reflective tape just in case someone’s driving by — they can’t miss it,” Ha said to a group of about 30 community members and kids who gathered over the weekend at Denver’s SugarCube Building, located in part of the area where Chinatown once existed, to celebrate the reinstallation of the marker. 

CAPU also unveiled a new installment of eight artistic traffic bollards in the alleyway behind the building, honoring important moments in Denver Chinatown’s past.
 
Jasmine Chu, a volunteer with CAPU and an artist, worked with middle school and high school students from Asian Girls Unite, an education nonprofit that offers programs focused on Asian identity formation and affirmation, to design the bollards.  

The 23 students selected important moments in Denver Chinatown’s past, wrote poems and designed objects which represented those historic dates. Chu then stenciled those designs onto the traffic bollards.
Students with Asian Girls Unite helped Chu design the traffic bollards. “It was really, really important that this project really be from the community and involve a youth voice,” said Chu. The bollards in the alley were designed to create a walking timeline of important dates from the Asian American community in Colorado. Photo: Andrea Kramar, Rocky Mountain PBS
Students with Asian Girls Unite helped Chu design the traffic bollards. “It was really, really important that this project really be from the community and involve a youth voice,” said Chu. The bollards in the alley were designed to create a walking timeline of important dates from the Asian American community in Colorado. Photo: Andrea Kramar, Rocky Mountain PBS
Chu said it was her first public art piece that she’s been commissioned and paid to do.  
 
“Now when you walk through [the alley], you’ll be able to see these little clues of the history that’s been erased from the space,” said Chu. “Hopefully this is just the first step to expanding more and more into the alley and reclaiming Denver’s Chinatown.”
 
Eventually, CAPU hopes to make the alley a pedestrian zone with murals, overhead lighting and a Chinatown gate, and host pop-up events.
 
The three Chinatown markers
The stolen marker that was recently reinstalled on 16th Street recounted the history of Denver’s Chinatown.
The new marker replacing the missing one stands on 16th Street between Wazee and Blake streets. CAPU made some slight changes, including enlarging the text, reinforcing the back so it’s harder to steal, and adding reflective lighting to prevent cars from hitting it. Photo: Andrea Kramar, Rocky Mountain PBS
The new marker replacing the missing one stands on 16th Street between Wazee and Blake streets. CAPU made some slight changes, including enlarging the text, reinforcing the back so it’s harder to steal, and adding reflective lighting to prevent cars from hitting it. Photo: Andrea Kramar, Rocky Mountain PBS
Another marker at 1620 Wazee Street details the 1880 race riot perpetrated against the Chinese residents. 
 
On Halloween in 1880, an estimated 3,000 to 5,000 white people converged in Denver’s Chinatown, destroying businesses and homes. The mob killed one person, a laundryman named Look Young. The four men who beat Young to death — James Corrigan, Edward Troendle, Frederick Miller and William Krueger — were found not guilty. 
 
In the years following the riot, Denver’s Chinatown actually grew, reaching about 1,000 residents, according to the Colorado Encyclopedia. But by 1940, the neighborhood was razed to make room for warehouses. 
 
The last remaining marker, located at 1890 Lawrence Street, tells the story of Young. 
 
Until CAPU installed the markers, the only acknowledgement of the historic neighborhood and riot was an inaccurate and, to many people, offensive marker near the intersection of 20th and Blake. That plaque, which made no mention of Young and sanitized the violence leading to his death, was finally removed in August of 2022.  
 
Ha said the Asian-American experience is often referred to as the “invisible minority”.  
 
“We don’t really hear much about these communities, the contributions to our country, the struggles they face, and how our government and country as a whole has disenfranchised these communities,” she said. 

You can learn more about Denver’s historic Chinatown at History Colorado’s new exhibit: “Where is Denver’s Chinatown? Stories Remembered, Reclaimed, Reimagined” running from Oct 10, 2024-August 9, 2025. You can also take a virtual tour of Denver’s Historic Chinatown here.