Lee Bing: Elusive "Founder" of Influential California delta town

 

The town of Locke is riddled with mystery and half-truths.

Nestled in the heart of the swampy California delta is a town that feels almost ripped from an old western. Walking down the street, a saloon rests uncomfortably against the old gambling hall, and across the small street lies the imposing façade of a crumbling opera house. A proud plaque erected in 1970 in the town center reads: “Founded in 1912, by Tin Sin Chan, on this site,”[1] even while on a nearby café another poster informs visitors that the town of Lockeport was founded by a merchant named George W. Locke at the young age of 22, when he purchased land along the delta in 1852.[2] Another town map in the same street explains that the town was founded in 1915 by a merchant from Walnut Grove, Lee Bing, when he “approached local landowner George Locke and inquired if they could build a town on his land.”[3] Yet another newspaper article claims that George S. Locke, the father of George W. Locke, was actually the founder of not Lockeport, nor Locke, but Lockeford.[4]

It’s easy to understand why the town’s origins are shrouded. In 1921, highbinders from the Hop Sing brought their San Francisco turf war to Lockeport, ambushing a merchant who was a member of another tong, the Bing Kong Tong, and according to reports, “razing” his property to the ground.[5] Earlier in that same year, a truce was attempted in Los Angeles between the Hop Sing Tong and Bing Kong Tong, when leaders traveled from San Francisco to discuss the fate of an actress, Lilie Lem Lee, who another man from the Hop Sing (Quong On) claimed to have purchased for $2000 ($34,000 in today’s currency).[6] For many years, Lockeport was considered the “Young Monte Carlo” of California because gambling was allowed, to some extent.[7] 

                Today, however, popular history records the Walnut Grove merchant Lee Bing as being the key figure behind the town. According to town history, Bing (of no relation to the Bing Kong Tong, although possibly a paying member of the association) was an herbalist from nearby Walnut Grove, who opened two gambling halls, a restaurant, a farm, and the famous Locke opera house, the Star Theatre. Bing, along with many other residents of the town who left Walnut Grove after Chinatown burned down in 1915, originally came from Chungshan, China, today known as Zhongshan in memory of Sun Zhongshan, the first president of the Republic of China – who also visited the town in both 1909 and 1910, and then built a local chapter of the Kuo Ming Tang in 1915.[8] Later, the town converted the Bing Kong Tong building into the Kou Ming school in 1926,[9] with Locke becoming a major organizational center for General Tsai Ting Kai’s fundraising efforts in boosting support in China’s war against Japan in 1934.[10]

                According to Bing’s grandson (Darwin Kan), Bing and his partners worked out a deal with George Locke to purchase the space for buildings on his land – but not the land itself (due to regulations at the time limiting Chinese ownership of land).[11] Given the closeness of Zhongshan to Macau, it’s therefore unsurprising that the residents of Locke (led by Bing) decided to construct California’s own Atlantic City. At one point in Locke’s history, the town consisted of five gambling halls, five brothels, four restaurants, opium dens, and speakeasies.[12] While Bing was not the only founder of the city, he was the most influential and prominent of the Chinese merchants who formed what could arguably be the heart of the Chinese American community during the exclusionary period in the United States.

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[1] This plaque is corroborated by Lawrence Tom, Brian Tom, and the Chinese American Museum of Northern California, Images of America: Locke and the Sacramento Delta Chinatowns, Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2013: 41. Furthermore, Tom & Tom name the two other “founders”, Wing Chong Owyang and Yuen Lai Sin, making the first three buildings of the town a saloon (owned by Chan), a boardinghouse (owned by Owyang), and a gambling hall (owned by Sing).

[2] “Welcome to Locke,” photo of Locke walking map taken myself December 26, 2022, at Locke, California. The claim that Lee Bing is the founder of Locke is further corroborated in Stephen Magagnini’s “Locke, once ‘Monte Carlo of the State,’ celebrates 100^th birthday,” The Sacramento Bee, May 7, 2015. https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/history/article20472876.html

[3] J’aime Rubio and Martha Esch, “History Revived in Locke,” History of Lockeport – The True Stories of Locke, California, April 25, 2016. https://lockehistory.blogspot.com/2016/04/history-revived-in-locke.html

[4] “Susan L. Locke Leaves $150,000,” San Francisco Call 100, no. 128, November 27, 1916. https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=SFC19161127.2.163

[5] “Lockeport Store Burned as New Tong War Breaks,” San Francisco Call 109, no. 116, May 21, 1921. https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=SFC19210521.2.17

[6] “Quiet Prevails Amoing Tongs in South,” Morning Press 49, no. 104, January 2, 1921. https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=MP19210102.2.120

[7] “Gambling Den at Locke is Raided,” Sacramento Daily Union 229, no. 26219, December 29, 1922. https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=SDU19221229.2.7

[8] Carol M. Highsmith, photographer. Busts of Coufucius and Sun Yat-sen outside building in Locke, an unincorporated community in the Sacramento/San Joaqin River Delta in California. United States California Locke, 2012. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2013633566/. See also DougK, “Bust of Sun Yat-sen – Locke, California,” Waymarking.com, August 22, 2014. https://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMMAGR_Bust_of_Sun_Yat_sen_Locke_California [Accessed July 21, 2023.]

[9] Lawrence Tom, Brian Tom, and the Chinese American Museum of Northern California, Images of America: Locke and the Sacramento Delta Chinatowns, Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2013: 48. Interesting, in 1952 this school was renamed the Joe Shoong School, after a generous endowment from the Chinese-American entrepreneur Joe Schoong, the founder of the National Dollar Stores.

[10] Ibid., 79.

[11] Scott Detrow, host, interviewing Darwin Kan, “This Historic California Town is a Living Legacy to the Chinese Immigrant Experience,” All Things Considered, National Public Radio, September 9, 2021. https://www.npr.org/2021/09/09/1035610387/this-historic-california-town-is-a-living-legacy-to-the-chinese-immigrant-experi

[12] “History – Locke,” Elk Grove Historical Society. https://elkgrovehistoricalsociety.com/history-locke/ [Accessed July 21, 2023]