Wong Wun's Laundry Tags

The demand for laundry services in old El Paso brought response from many Chinese, out of work after the completion of the Southern Pacific Railroad. In 1889, all eighteen laundries in the city were owned and operated by Chinese.

For the most part, individual laundrymen came and went, but one, Wong Wun, managed to stay in business for forty years, outlasting even the neighbor who boasted of his services with the slogan "Cleaner than River Sand." When Wong Wun's "House of 10,000 Washings" opened on North Stanton in 1897, he charged one dollar to wash sheets and fifty sents to wash and starch ladies' bloomers.

He had an unusual system for identifying his laundry. On the garments themselves and in his rice paper pocket book, Wong Wun would place matching symbols, spidery Chinese characters which identified his customers by some distinctive personal characteristic. It was said that he always returned property to the rightful owner, whether it be "Unhappy lady who coughs," "Freckled gentleman with loud voice," "Sneezing man who scratches head," "thin gentleman with missing teeth," or "debonaire radio host who brings you "Lifetimes: The Texas Experience."

Farrar, Nancy, "The Chinese in El Paso," Southwestern Studies Monograph No. 33, Texas Western Press, The University of Texas at El Paso, 1972, pp. 13-14.

Mary Grace Ketner

Copyright 1999
The University of Texas
Institute of Texan Cultures
at San Antonio