Gurdwara Sahib Stocktonਗੁਰਦੁਆਰਾ ਸਾਹਿਬ ਸਟਾਕਟਨ

Gurdwara Sahib Stockton is a Sikh temple in Stockton, California, the first gurdwara founded in the United States. The Pacific Coast Khalsa Diwan Society held its first prayer there on 24 October 1912, and the temple on South Grant Street, now Sikh Temple Street, became the religious, social and political centre of the pioneer Punjabi community in America. It is a California Historical Landmark and remains an active place of worship.

What is Gurdwara Sahib Stockton?

It is the founding gurdwara of Sikh America: a working temple at 1930 S Sikh Temple St in the San Joaquin Valley city of Stockton, and at the same time a historic site. Here the first Sikh congregation in the United States gathered around the Guru Granth Sahib, here the community fed travellers through its langar, and from here money and volunteers flowed to the Ghadar movement for Indian independence. The United States Senate, marking its centenary in 2012, called the Stockton Gurdwara the birthplace of Sikhism in America.

History: a prayer room on a Holt farm

The story begins on a farm, not in a temple. Jawala Singh, a successful potato farmer who had reached San Francisco in 1908, leased a 500 acre ranch with his partner Wasakha Singh at Holt, near Stockton. Punjabi Sikh farmers working the valley came to the ranch to pray in a room set aside for the Guru Granth Sahib, and the farm became a meeting place for the whole pioneer community. On 1 November 1911, tradition in the community records, the first Sikh congregational prayer in the United States was held at a camp near Stockton.

The congregation organised itself as the Pacific Coast Khalsa Diwan Society, with Sant Teja Singh as its founding president, incorporated on 27 May 1912. In September 1912 the society bought the residential lot at 1930 South Grant Street in Stockton. A small frame house already stood on the lot, the Nishan Sahib was raised, and the first prayer in the new gurdwara was held on 24 October 1912. Baba Jawala Singh and Baba Wasakha Singh served as its first granthis, the readers of the scripture. Hundreds of local residents protested the raising of the Nishan Sahib, and Teja Singh explained its religious meaning until the crowd was satisfied.

The Ghadar Party and the first Punjabi newspaper in America

Stockton's sangat did not separate worship from the politics of home. The gurdwara became an important benefactor of the Ghadar Party, the revolutionary movement that called on diaspora Indians to end British rule in India, and it sponsored The Ghadar, the first Punjabi language newspaper in the United States, published from 1 November 1913. The Holt farm served as a centre of Ghadar activity, and Jawala Singh helped organise the party's Sacramento conference of 31 December 1913, where he was elected its first vice president. In August 1914 he sailed for India with the first large group of volunteers, was arrested on arrival, and spent 18 years in prison for the cause.

Architecture: from frame house to brick temple and library

Three buildings tell the temple's growth. The first was the small frame house of 1912. In 1915 a new wooden structure, with a prayer hall and a langar hall, was completed and dedicated in November 1915, on the birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev Ji; the Stockton Record reported the ceremonies as impressive, and two hundred invited townspeople attended. In 1929 the wooden building was moved to serve as the temple library, and a new brick temple was built in its place, completed in 1930 according to the state landmark record. That brick building, with its tall arched window and the words Sikh Temple above it, is the temple photographed for this page, standing behind its white wall and tall cypress trees on Sikh Temple Street.

One detail of the old temple surprises modern visitors. With permission from the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee, the Stockton sangat for many years followed a western pattern indoors, sitting on chairs with shoes on and heads uncovered. As large numbers of Sikh immigrants arrived from the mid 1980s, Stockton, like the other California gurdwaras, returned to the practice followed in India: shoes removed, heads covered, and the congregation seated on the carpet, with benches kept at the side for those who need them.

People of Stockton: scholarships, Saund and Thind

Before the temple had a building, its founders were funding students. The Sri Guru Gobind Singh Educational Scholarships, announced on 1 January 1912, paid for Indian students of any community to study at the University of California, Berkeley; the first awards went to a Christian, a Sikh, a Muslim and three Hindus. Two later members of the Stockton sangat carried its name into American history. Bhagat Singh Thind, a civil rights advocate, was the first Sikh to serve in the United States Army during the First World War. Dalip Singh Saund, whose Berkeley studies the Stockton Gurdwara sponsored, was elected to Congress in 1956, the first Sikh American, the first Asian American and the first Indian American to sit there.

How do you reach Gurdwara Sahib Stockton?

The gurdwara stands at 1930 S Sikh Temple St, Stockton, CA 95206, in the south of the city, on the street earlier known as South Grant Street. Stockton is a San Joaquin Valley city on Interstate 5 and Highway 99, roughly an hour south of Sacramento. The temple is an active place of worship, listed in this Kosh under our guide to Gurdwaras in the USA, and visitors follow the usual gurdwara courtesies: cover your head, remove your shoes, and accept the langar that this temple has served to all comers since its first years. The wider Punjabi story of the valley is told in our places entry for Stockton.