Walnut Grove was the center of social and economic life for many Japanese seasonal agricultural workers in the rural Delta area from 1896 to the relocation of Japanese during World War II.

By 1900, at least seven businesses were operated by Japanese, including boarding houses, stores, a bathhouse and a barbershop. By 1910, the Japanese also operated hotels, restaurants, dry goods stores, drug stores, mercantile stores and grocery stores.

An influx of picture brides during the 1910s led to the establishment of a Japanese language school and a Methodist Church. The Japanese community was thriving in 1915, with forty-nine businesses entered in the local assessment records.

In 1915, a fire destroyed the entire Asian neighborhood, more than eighty buildings.

Before the fire, the Japanese occupied the northern section of Chinatown. After the fire, the Japanese physically separated themselves from the Chinese by renting land from Alex Brownto build their own nihonmachi one block north of its previous location.

Japanese builders and carpenters from San Francisco, Stockton and Sacramento volunteered labor and expertise to design and build the new neighborhood.

Source: NRHP nomination submitted in 1990.