When the first Japanese began to arrive in San Jose in the 1890s, they settled east of Sixth Street between Jackson and Taylor street, near the Heinlenville Chinatown. Named for its owner and benefactor, John Heinlen, Heinlenville came about after San Jose’s second Chinatown mysteriously burnt to the ground in 1887 and Heinlen, who liked the Chinese, offered up his own property for the new location. Ignoring the public outrage, it was here that Heinlen built a Chinatown entirely out of brick, which he then rented to the Chinese at very low rates.
