Joss House, Santa Barbara 1927, by H.M. Davidson. Donation to SBTHP by Elizabeth Hvolboll.

The eighteenth century Spanish Presidio quadrangle underwent many transformations over two centuries. By the late 1800s, the few extant portions of the Presidio's northwest corner abutted Santa Barbara's bustling Chinatown, one block further West on Canon Perdido Street. Chinese immigrants began arriving in Santa Barbara as early as the 1860s and worked in fields as diverse as abalone fishing, farming, laundry enterprises and domestic service. The block of Canon Perdido Street between State Street and Anacapa Street served as the cultural and residential hub for this community. It included a rooming house, several businesses, a school, place of worship and community meeting spaces. During the rebuilding that took place after the 1925 Santa Barbara earthquake, prominent local property owners forcibly removed the Chinese from this block in the attempt to create a cohesive Spanish colonial revival look for the city’s downtown commercial district.1

By 1930, the remaining residents of Santa Barbara’s Chinatown had moved one block down Canon Perdido Street, firmly situated within the Presidio quadrangle, and adjacent to a small and active community of Japanese residents. In the 1920s, local real estate owner and contractor Elmer Whittaker built a series of structures on this block with the intent of encouraging the dwindling Chinese population to remain in downtown Santa Barbara.

1 Richard Piedmonte, “The Chinese Presidio Community,” Santa Barbara Presidio Area: 1840 to the Present (Santa Barbara: University of California, Santa Barbara Public Historical Studies and Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation, 1993): 125-127.