Kam Wah Chung & Co., John Day约翰迪金华昌号（庙宇兼商号）
- Type
- Overseas Daoist Temples
- Location
- United States · Oregon · John Day · Kam Wah Chung State Heritage Site, John Day, Grant County
- Coordinates
- 44.418688, -118.956922 Map ↗
- First built
- 1887 · The building was constructed around 1866–1867 (originally a trading post beside The Dalles Military Road); it was purchased in partnership by Lung On and Ing "Doc" Hay in 1887
- Heritage status
- National Historic Landmark (20 September 2005)National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) #73001575 (20 March 1973)Oregon Heritage Site
Overview
Kam Wah Chung & Co. is the best-preserved nineteenth-century Chinese-American commercial building in North America. The original structure was built around 1866–1867 and was purchased in 1887 in partnership by Lung On and the herbalist Ing "Doc" Hay, who operated it until 1948. The building served several functions at once: general store, Chinese herbal pharmacy and clinic, community meeting hall for the overseas Chinese, and religious site — in 1900 a local Buddhist shrine was moved into the building, and the Buddhist Ing "Doc" Hay conducted religious rites there for the immigrant community, so that the literature directly describes it as also functioning as a "temple and joss house." According to CINARC research, John Day also had a late-nineteenth-century Suijing Bo temple (a simple wooden structure located less than a hundred yards north of Kam Wah Chung), which no longer survives; only three wooden plaques bearing the temple's name remain, now held in the Kam Wah Chung museum. After the deaths of Lung and Hay, the property was donated to the city of John Day in 1955, rediscovered and restored in the 1970s, and reopened after a major renovation in 2006–2007; its collection is one of the largest holdings of primary Chinese-American documents in North America.
Highlights
- The best-preserved nineteenth-century Chinese-American commercial building in North America
- Served as herbal pharmacy, clinic, meeting hall and temple all at once
- The shrine moved in in 1900 and the rites conducted there by Ing "Doc" Hay
- Near a now-vanished Suijing Bo temple, whose three plaques are now held in the museum
- Its collection is one of the largest holdings of primary Chinese-American documents in North America