Hotel Taihei San Jose Japantown

Hotel Taihei San Jose Japantown

Japantown, San Jose, 1920's, Hotel, Jackson Street, Lincoln Line Tokunaga

The Hotel Taihei was built in 1913 by a local contractor named George Veteran. It was the first hotel in Japantown and at the time it was the tallest building with three stories. It was owned by Kumataro and Tsuru Taketa and was a popular destination in the early days of the Japantown as many Japanese would stay overnight when they came into town to buy goods. However, as the need for hotels dwindled in the following decade as transportation improved the hotel became a boarding house that would rent out rooms for office use. Currently the building is home of the Headliners clothing store as well as the Petite Galleria. In the picture is Kumataro Taketa who is the man sixth from the left and the tall man in the back row was Lincoln Line Tokunaga whose father ran the Fuji Drug Store. Lincoln himself opened his own Fuji Drugs in nearby Salinas but after World War II relocated back to San Jose to operate Jackson Drugs for a number of years.

Japanese American Museum San Jose

March 9th 1927

Japanese American Museum San Jose