CHERRY BLOSSOM HOTEL

7257-61 Monterey Street

This two-story Spanish Colonial Revival structure was constructed in 1921, in a two-block area between Seventh and Ninth Streets known for many years as the Chinatown of Gilroy. Chinese immigrant workers (mostly males) settled in this part of town after the completion of the transcontinental railroad in the 1860s. When the City of Gilroy was incorporated in 1870, approximately 1,000 of the city’s 3,000 residents were Chinese, many of whom worked in Gilroy’s then-booming tobacco industry. Across the street from the Cherry Blossom Hotel, where the Gilroy Transit Center currently resides, was a three-story brick building owned by the Consolidated Tobacco Company, billed the world’s largest cigar-making factory where as much as 900 of the city’s Chinese residents were employed rolling an estimated one million cigars a month. Owned by Gilroy resident James Culp, this company’s cigars and other tobacco products (protected by a patented curing process) were famous at the time and shipped arpound the world. Unfortunately, Culp was forced to drastically downsize his business and release many of his workers after the 1879 enactment of a California constitutional amendment prohibiting state corporations from employing Chinese people.

Despite the devastating impact of these laws, including the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, and the dispersal of many of its Chinese residents to other parts of the state to find work, Gilroy’s Chinatown continued to thrive into the 1920s with a mixture of successful Chinese and Japanese businesses. It boasted restaurants, laundries, gambling dens (and a few opium dens), shops, homes, and boarding rooms. It continued to attract travelers between San Francisco and Los Angeles looking for a little excitement and entertainment. Local tradition holds that the Cherry Blossom was known to be a popular brothel located in the heart of Chinatown.

In 1930, all of Gilroy’s Chinatown, with the exception of the Cherry Blossom Hotel and two other non-wooden buildings, burned to the ground. These three buildings are still standing today. Although the lifestyle and architecture of Chinatown are long gone, many mementos from its past remain. During the renovation of the Cherry Blossom building (now owned by the City of Gilroy) in 2004, its owner uncovered many well-preserved artifacts from Chinatown’s storied past. Among the items were ceramic and mother of pearl vases, porcelain figurines, and old bottles dating back to the late 1800s.