IJ56 Block, Sacramento, California: An Early Chinese Community

This report details the results of a program of archaeological excavation on the I Street half of the IJ56 block in Sacramento, California, and was conducted for the Sacramento Redevelopment Agency. The attached work represents the final stage in a four-phase investigation of the IJ56 block, in accordance with the City's Cultural Resources Plan, prior to the block's imminent development. The first stage focused on documentary research of 16 blocks in downtown Sacramento, specifically on the ownership and uses of the land from 1850 to 1920. A series of trenches were later excavated, artifacts were collected to chiefly provide chronological data, and several archaeological features were recommended for further investigation. 

Recovered artifacts and documentary evidence characterizes much of the project area as an early Chinatown that also portrays a "transitional" stage of Sacramento's history. The report details how both the Chinese-American neighborhood and Sacramento generally were becoming more permanent and urbanized fixtures of the environment, and how Chinatown's evolving layout may represent multiple levels of intentionality.