For hundreds of years, when the Sacramento Delta was a swamp nearly the size of Rhode Island, Native Americans inhabited this area, and burial mounds of the Junisumne Plains Miwok remain nearby. In 1852, twenty-two-year-old George W. Locke came to California from New Hampshire during the Gold Rush, became a successful Sacramento merchant, and with Samuel P. Lavenson acquired large Delta swampland holdings, including the 490-acre Locke Ranch. Much of that parcel was developed, with Delta Meadows left mostly wild, a large pear orchard planted on the northern third, and other areas used for a railroad workers' encampment and rail yard, a Russian settlement of 30 cabins along Locke Slough, two large canneries with dormitories, a fruit packing shed, rail yard, shipping wharf, and a 10-acre global village. In the early 1900s, the original settlement of Lockeport housed railroad, cannery, and shipping wharf workers in a town of residences and businesses that included gambling houses, lodges, boarding houses, saloons, restaurants, brothels, theaters, opium dens, a flour mill, a church, a slaughterhouse, and a community garden. After a fire burned part of Walnut Grove on October 7, 1915, many Chinese and some Japanese families relocated there, and most of the buildings standing today were built between 1916 and 1926. The town's name was shortened to Locke between 1916 and 1920, and from 1916 to 1963 it had its own post office. Records over the years show a diverse population that included Americans, Europeans, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Italians, and East Indian families, and by the 1930 U.S. Census Locke had about 550 residents, 37 percent Chinese and 63 percent non-Chinese, representing more than 23 countries of origin. Its canneries, shipping wharf, rail yard, and packing house employed and housed immigrants from around the world, while restaurants, gambling houses, opium dens, brothels, and saloons gave the town a notorious reputation as the Monte Carlo of the Delta. Today Locke has a small population, and its leaning buildings, narrow Main Street, and natural setting draw tourists, while artists, photographers, writers, and musicians make their home there.