Type Public, state Nearest city John Day, NRHP Reference # 73001575 Opened 1866 Phone +1 800-551-6949 | Location Grant County, Oregon Built 1866 Address John Day, OR 97845, USA Area 1,214 m² Added to NRHP 20 March 1973 | |
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Operated by Oregon Parks and Recreation Department Similar Wolf Creek Inn State Heritage, Clyde Holliday State Rec, Blue Mountain Forest St, Battle Mountain Forest St, Ukiah–Dale Forest State Sce | ||
The Kam Wah Chung & Co. Museum, also known as Kam Wah Chung Company Building, is a state park and a National Historic Landmark that preserves early Chinese culture in John Day in the U.S. state of Oregon. Built in 1866 or 1867 as a trading post along a wagon road later known as The Dalles Military Road, it later became the center of the Chinese community in John Day as a store and apothecary run by Ing Hay (known also as "Doc Hay") and Lung On, Chinese immigrants from Guangdong.
The building remained abandoned after Ing Hay died in 1952. He asked that the building be deeded to the city of John Day with the provision it be turned into a museum. His wish, and the ownership of the building, were forgotten until 1967. While surveying for a new park the city discovered its ownership of the building and began to restore it as it was in the 1940s.
Today the Kam Wah Chung & Co. Museum contains one of the most extensive collections of materials from the century-long influx of Chinese immigrants in the American West. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 and designated a National Historic Landmark by the Secretary of the Interior in 2005.