About Japantown
Utah Japantown Stories is a project by Utah Japantown Advocates. It draws on the ongoing Japantown Oral History project conducted by Jack Rouse by mapping clips from the interviews. Engaging with these primary sources with an understanding of their location, helps to understand just how deep a connection to place goes.
History of Japantown
1906 to 1966
The Making of Salt Lake City's Japantown: Migration, Survival, and Community
Japanese immigration to Utah began in the 1880s, part of a broader wave of migration that transformed the American West. After Japan lifted emigration restrictions in 1885, thousands left seeking economic opportunity, though they faced explicit denial of citizenship rights. Between 1890 and 1910, the Japanese population in the United States grew from just over 2,000 to more than 72,000, with most settling in California where they encountered intense racial hostility that soon spread across western states.
Utah's first Japanese immigrants arrived as railroad laborers, filling positions abandoned by Chinese workers fleeing violent riots in Rock Springs, Evanston, and Carbon County. These early arrivals worked brutal jobs—as section gang workers maintaining railroad lines in isolated desert outposts, as "bank men" in Bingham's copper mines who dangled by ropes over precipices to swing picks into ore, and as farm laborers whose agricultural skills quickly became both valued and resented.
By 1902, the E.D. Hashimoto Company at 163 West South Temple became the anchor of what would grow into Japantown, supplying workers to railroads while providing imported foods, handling payrolls, and navigating bureaucratic complexities for immigrants with limited education. Around Hashimoto's enterprise, a community took shape. By 1907, Japantown stretched from South Temple to Third South and from the railroad tracks at Seventh West to State Street, though its heart concentrated along First South between West Temple and Second West. Noodle houses, boardinghouses, bathhouses, barbershops, and produce stands lined the streets. The Rocky Mountain Times began publishing in 1907, followed by the Utah Nippo in 1914. Religious institutions anchored community life: the Buddhist Church established in 1912, the Japanese Church of Christ in 1918. A Japanese language school opened in 1919, ensuring children could communicate with parents and maintain cultural connections.
These businesses and institutions created more than commercial convenience—they built social infrastructure for people living under constant prejudice. Issei (first generation) maintained traditions from home while navigating American racism. They gathered at churches for festivals, held kabuki performances in the Buddhist Church basement, and celebrated New Year with traditional foods and sake. Summer picnics drew Japanese families from across the state for races, games, and sumo wrestling contests. The Obon festival honored ancestors with street dancing, paper lanterns, and drumming—a tradition that continues today.
Yet Japanese success bred resentment. California's 1914 Anti-Alien Land Law, prohibiting Japanese from buying land and limiting leases to three years, reflected broader "Yellow Peril" anxieties that dismissed their agricultural expertise while fearing their economic competition. Utah proved more tolerant than California but hardly welcoming—Japanese faced restaurant and theater segregation, swimming pool bans, and constant reminders of their outsider status.
Incarceration and Topaz
December 7, 1941, shattered whatever precarious stability Japanese Americans had achieved. Within months, Executive Order 9066 authorized the military to remove all persons of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast—citizens and immigrants alike. More than 120,000 people were given as little as six days to dispose of property and report for "evacuation." Businesses sold for fractions of their value or simply abandoned. Families buried samurai swords in backyards, hoping to return.
Utah became home to the Central Utah War Relocation Center, nicknamed "Topaz" after nearby mountains. Built on nearly 20,000 acres of alkaline desert fifteen miles from Delta, Topaz imprisoned 8,000 people behind barbed wire and armed guard towers. The fine dust demoralized everyone. For three years, families endured cold, drafty barracks while maintaining dignity through schools, art classes, and publication of the Topaz Times.
Meanwhile, Japanese Americans outside camp zones faced their own struggles. Utah's 1943 Anti-Alien Land Law prohibited land purchases. Business licenses were denied. Union miners blocked hiring at Bingham. FBI agents searched homes. Families of community leaders like Henry Kasai were separated indefinitely from their families and without explanation.
While families sat imprisoned, their children volunteered for military service. The 442nd Regimental Combat Team became the most decorated unit in American military history, suffering a 300% casualty rate while rescuing the "Lost Battalion." As President Truman told them when pinning their final Presidential Unit Citation: "You fought not only the enemy but you fought prejudice and you won."
Postwar Resurgence
After the war, many evacuees relocated to Salt Lake City rather than return to hostile California communities. The city's Japanese population tripled between 1942 and 1946. The Buddhist Church and JACL temporarily moved national headquarters to Salt Lake.
This influx revitalized Japantown. New businesses opened and First South between West Temple and Third West became the vibrant heart where everyone gathered. You might run into friends at Aloha Fountain or spot familiar faces at California Market, Family Market, or New Sunrise Fish Market. The Pagoda and City Café served meals while Pee Wee's Conoco and Tats Masuda's Uptown Service pumped gas.
The Nisei (second generation) created a distinctive mid-century culture blending Japanese and American influences. Sports were wildly popular and Japanese American teams traveled across the country to compete against one another in baseball, bowling, and judo. Young people gathered for dances at church halls and Obon festivals drew the community together to dance in kimonos under paper lanterns on summer evenings.
This was Japantown at its peak. Community members fondly recollect a sense of belonging reinforced by the familiarity of a tight-knit community. However, it wouldn't last long. Urban renewal loomed on the horizon, but for two decades after the war, Salt Lake's Japantown thrived as a testament to resilience, the determination to rebuild after catastrophic loss, and the power of community to create home in spite of extraordinary circumstances.
1966 to 2007
Everything changed in the 1960s. Salt Lake City's civic leaders dreamed of transforming their city into an international destination, with eyes on hosting the Winter Olympics. In 1962, the Second Century Plan outlined a vision for a modernized downtown. The following year, the Downtown Planning Association formed with one primary goal: passing a seventeen-million-dollar bond to construct a massive civic auditorium.
The site chosen for this Salt Palace Convention Center sat directly on top of Japantown. City newspapers described the area as vacant and dilapidated, never acknowledging it as the heart of Japanese American life. The bond passed in 1964, demolition began in 1966, and by 1969, the Salt Palace stood complete. The presence of a bustling Japanese American community couldn't match the political and financial power of government and business interests reshaping downtown.
Failed Attempts at Little Tokyo
Japanese American business owners and community leaders didn't accept displacement passively. In 1964, they formed the Japanese Downtown Planning Committee and Oriental Enterprises of Utah, proposing a "Little Tokyo" district as part of the Second Century Plan. The idea appealed to city planners who saw ethnic enclaves as tourist attractions for their cosmopolitan city vision.
The community created separate committees—one for relocating elderly Japanese Americans, another for planning the Oriental Center. They conducted surveys and held meetings with the Downtown Planning Association and developers. Yet after eighteen months of negotiations, nothing materialized. Raymond Uno, a committee member, later reflected that dragging out negotiations caused everyone to lose steam. Small business owners lacked the capital to wait indefinitely while maintaining their livelihoods. Without commitments or funding, displaced shop owners scattered across the Salt Lake Valley, unable to reconsolidate their businesses elsewhere.
In 1965, organizers tried again with the Far Eastern Cultural Center Project, envisioning youth recreation facilities, meeting spaces, arts centers, and housing accommodating Japanese customs. This non-profit venture explicitly differentiated itself from the business-focused Little Tokyo plan, emphasizing community needs over commercial interests. Despite optimism about securing federal funding, this initiative also faded from the historical record within months.
A New Threat and Multi-Ethnic Organizing
By 1972, a second displacement threat emerged. The bicentennial commission proposed converting the only two remaining Japanese institutions—the Salt Lake Buddhist Temple and Japanese Church of Christ—into parking lots or exhibition halls for Salt Palace expansion. This time, the community responded differently.
The Japanese Community Improvement Program (JCIP) formed with a more radical consciousness. A younger generation—Sansei and Yonsei—asked questions about their heritage of dispossession, connecting the Salt Palace destruction to Executive Order 9066 and wartime incarceration. The Utah Nippo, the community newspaper, declared: "The JCIP purpose is to work towards this end and the mutual benefit of all Japanese to give them the right to operate under a free atmosphere of individuals and not be herded about and shunted from one place to another."
This movement featured important differences from earlier efforts. It included younger professionals, utilized legal representation, and crucially, built coalitions with other minority groups—Greeks, Blacks, Chicanos, and other Asians. In 1973, they successfully lobbied for state legislation protecting the two churches. The coalition reflected both practical necessity—all non-white minorities composed just 6.5% of Utah's population—and alignment with broader Asian American activism emerging in the late 1960s.
The Multi-Ethnic Senior Highrise
From this coalition emerged the Multi-Ethnic Development Corporation, which shifted focus from commercial ventures to addressing urgent community needs: affordable senior housing. With funding from HUD and support from city officials, they pursued a site adjacent to the Salt Lake Buddhist Temple on historic Japantown's footprint.
In 1973, JCIP surveyed 120 community members about their priorities. Results showed 85% wanted to reestablish a physical Japanese community space in Salt Lake City, with preferences for civic and cultural activities. However, respondents split evenly on whether to include other minority groups, suggesting ambivalence about shared space even as multi-ethnic organizing proved politically necessary.
The path forward involved protracted negotiations. Salt Palace officials and county government tried trading the needed parcel for permanent closure of Second West, which would isolate the two Japanese churches from traffic. Community leaders fought this trade-off. Plans for a broader multi-ethnic mall or community center never gained traction, but the senior housing initiative succeeded.
The Multi-Ethnic Senior Highrise opened in 1980, providing 100 units of affordable housing. It became the Japanese American community's preferred gathering space, hosting flu shots, movie nights, bazaars, internment reunions, and visiting diplomats. In 1981, it housed a disproportionately high number of Japanese residents—22 out of 152 total occupants—alongside other minority and white residents.
Legacy and Recognition
The Highrise represented a pragmatic victory born from crisis. While activists couldn't prevent Japantown's destruction or rebuild a commercial district, they created infrastructure meeting their most vulnerable members' needs while maintaining community gathering space. The Multi-Ethnic Development Corporation continued as a successful affordable housing developer, completing at least three properties by 2016.
2007 to Present
Japantown's Fight for Survival
In 2007, Salt Lake City officially designated First South between Second and Third West as "Japantown Street," acknowledging what remained of a once-thriving neighborhood. This recognition came after decades of displacement, but it also marked the beginning of renewed advocacy efforts by the Japanese American community determined to preserve their cultural home.
The formal designation emerged from the work of the Japanese Community Preservation Committee (JCPC), formed in the early 2000s by community leaders including former state senator Jani Iwamoto and Third District Court Judge Raymond Uno. The JCPC organized in response to yet another Salt Palace expansion in the late 1990s and early 2000s that threatened to further encroach on the two remaining institutions from historic Japantown—the Salt Lake Buddhist Temple and Japanese Church of Christ. The committee successfully negotiated mitigation measures including gates to hide loading docks and a Japanese garden to buffer increased semi-truck traffic.
Despite its diminished physical footprint, Japantown remained vibrantly alive through community gatherings. The Salt Lake Buddhist Temple, built in 1962 and serving a sangha of about sixty weekly attendees, and the Japanese Church of Christ, celebrating its centennial in 2024 with forty to fifty regular congregants, became the anchors for Japanese American cultural life. These churches host annual festivals that draw thousands: Obon, featuring ceremonial dancing honoring ancestors, and Nihon Matsuri, the Japan Festival celebrating Japanese culture with food, performances, martial arts demonstrations, and traditional arts. The temples also regularly hold food bazaars, workshops, exhibits, and art displays, making Japantown Street a gathering place for the broader Salt Lake community.
In 2018, a new threat emerged with the proposed West Quarter development, which planned to relegate portions of Japantown Street to back alleys for trash and loading docks. "For Japanese Americans in Utah, it was painful history repeating itself," Iwamoto recalled. The JCPC mobilized again, working with the Salt Lake City Redevelopment Agency to secure funding for a streetscape beautification plan featuring cherry trees, Japanese landscaping, origami sculptures, and interpretive signage designed by GSBS Architects in collaboration with community members. The plan, guided by the Japanese principle of Okage sama de ("I am who I am because of you"), aimed to honor Japantown's pioneers while creating a vibrant space for future generations.
The most recent and most significant challenge arrived in April 2024 when billionaire Ryan Smith announced his purchase of the Arizona Coyotes hockey franchise and plans to relocate them to Salt Lake City's Delta Center. The city, county, and state rapidly approved the Sports, Entertainment, Culture, and Convention District (SECC), a massive redevelopment zone that includes Japantown Street. The SECC enables construction of buildings up to 600 feet tall—150 feet higher than Salt Lake City's current tallest building—directly on Japantown Street, threatening to disrupt church services and make festival permits more difficult and expensive to obtain.
In response, a new generation mobilized. Utah Japantown Advocates (UJA), initially known as SLC NextGen JA, formed with mostly millennial Japanese Americans who grew up attending services and festivals on Japantown Street. UJA launched petition drives and public campaigns envisioning not just preservation but revitalization—a thriving Japantown with Japanese restaurants, shops, and cultural spaces integrated into downtown's future.
By November 2025, years of community organizing finally yielded concrete results. The Salt Lake City Community Reinvestment Agency approved an $11 million plan to overhaul Japantown Street, including up to 50 cherry trees, expanded pedestrian walkways, a flattened street surface for easier festival hosting, preserved parking, and electrical access for vendors. A mural for the Multi-Ethnic Senior Housing Tower is planned for spring 2026. While uncertainty remains about how Smith Entertainment Group's entertainment district plans will impact the neighborhood, the community has secured both recognition and investment in Japantown's future—a testament to decades of persistent advocacy.
Sources on Japantown
Digital Resources
Mitsugi M. Kasai Memorial Japanese American Archive at the University of Utah
Includes some photos of Japantown and digitized oral history transcripts
Includes the Utah Nippo and Rocky Mountain Times, two Japanese-language newspapers based in Salt Lake City
Japanese Americans in Utah Book
Includes community-written sections on all parts of Japanese American social, cultural, and civic life
In the News
The Past, Present and Future of Salt Lake City’s Japantown - Radio West
How a Dubious Olympic Bid Nearly Destroyed this Japantown - PBS
Revitalizing Japantown Street - University of Utah Magazine
Academic Texts