Chinatown was centred on Pine St., between Harewood and downtown Nanaimo. The community was destroyed in a huge fire on Sept. 30, 1960. (Nanaimo Community Archives)

By Ian Holmes

historic fire

VIDEO: 60 years since Nanaimo’s last ever Chinatown destroyed in massive fire

Sep 30, 2020 | 12:40 PM

NANAIMO — The Harbour City was forever altered 60 years ago when a devastating fire ripped through the city’s last ever Chinatown.

Dozens of tightly packed wooden buildings on both sides of Pine St. were obliterated in the Sept. 30, 1960 fire.

Longtime Nanaimo resident Lloyd Sherry vividly recalled the fateful day when the popular and vibrant neighbourhood went up in flames.

“It was a big hole in not only the Chinese community but the rest of the community,” Sherry told NanaimoNewsNOW.

Sherry could only helplessly look on from his then-Harewood Rd. home as the hours-long fire outmatched firefighters.

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He said Chinatown was an important social, cultural and tourism draw, with many of the hard-working merchants widely known on a first name basis.

“It didn’t matter what part of town that you lived in Chinatown was a place where many people frequented, at times especially on weekends.”

Sherry recalled an extensive community effort to help people impacted by the fire rebuild their lives.

Christine Meutzner, general manager of Nanaimo Community Archives, said the Chinatown fire was a defining, era-ending moment in Nanaimo.

“Chinatown was never rebuilt it, never had that kind of cache again. People dispersed to other parts of the community or left the community altogether,” Meutzner said.

She said the shack-like structures moved from previous local Chinatown settlements burned hot and fast.

Chinatown in the Pine St. and Hecate St. area introduced many people in Nanaimo to a new culture.

“In terms of anything a little more exotic Chinatown would have been it,” Meutzner said. “It had this huge value in introducing people who would have never have had any kind of exposure to different ways of living.”

The Chinatown fire is considered Nanaimo’s largest ever and left upwards of 200 people without homes, according to the Nanaimo Museum.

ian@nanaimonewsnow.com
On Twitter: @reporterholmes