Passage I

The Kam Wah Chung & Co. Museum

To the casual observer, the Kam Wah Chung & Co. building, located in the eastern Oregon community of John Day, that is, simply a small, unassuming structure made of rock and wood. To those with an interest in history, however, it’s a unique building that preserves a part of the legacy of the Chinese community in the nineteenth-century American West.

Built in the 1860s, the Kam Wah Chung building first served as a trading post for travelers who attract to the land east of the Cascade Mountains by news of gold strikes there. In 1887, the original owner sold the building (4) . The men combined their skills, organized a group of investors, and remains in business together for more than fifty years.

Educated in the Chinese classics and fluent in English, Lung On was a skilled merchant who built a successful textile and import business. He also sold food and supplies to local miners. His partner, Doc Hay, established an herbal medicine clinic. Hay became famous throughout central and eastern Oregon when he would make perceptive diagnoses and curing patients whose previous treatments had failed. (8) Over time, the partners’ building evolved into a social, medical, and supply center, as well as a post office, library, and herb shop. (9)

[1] Hay and On’s businesses prospered through the turn of the century, during the Great Depression, and beginning the 1940s. [2] Because the climate in eastern Oregon is semi-arid, the artifacts left inside—including gold-mining tools, rare antique furniture, financial documents, and a thousand different herbs—were preserved. [3] Although On died in 1940, Hay continued to run Kam Wah Chung & Co. until 1948. [4] After Hay’s death, his nephew inherited the building and donated it to the city of John Day. [5] For almost twenty years, it remained locked. [6] The building was restored by the state of Oregon in the 1970s and has became the Kam Wah Chung & Co. Museum. [7] Designated as being called a National Historic Landmark in 2005, besides, it encapsulates an era.(14)