Chinatown uncovered

By Tim Trainor of The Montana Standard - 10/26/2008

Mitzi Rossillon checks an inventory list of the catalogued artifacts dug up in Butte's Chinatown last year. The window of the Mai Wah Museum on West Mercury Street frames the site where urban archaeologists made their finds. Photos by Walter Hinick / The Montana Standard

In a dusty lot in Uptown Butte, remnants of a once-thriving Chinatown hid underground for nearly a century.

Last summer, archaeologists and volunteers spent nearly six weeks bringing that history to the surface.

They unearthed more than 20,000 artifacts — including fans, hats, dice, vases, oil lamps, opium bowls, perfume bottles and shards of plates and pottery — which eventually will be exhibited in the Mai Wai Museum, 17 W. Mercury St.

But to Mitzi Rossillon, an archaeologist with Renewable Technologies Inc. in Butte, and the head of the dig team, the project was about more than just discovering museum-worthy pieces. It was about understanding how Butte's Chinese residents lived and worked 100 years ago.

"We were able to put together a lot of information about what lives were like here in Butte," she said. "This was the cultural, social and economic center for Chinese in this region from the 1880s to the 1930s." Chinatown, at its peak around 1915, was a horseshoe-shaped neighborhood with both commercial and residential buildings, according to evidence uncovered by the dig.

Retail stores, a Chinese laundry, drugstore, Baptist mission and possibly a restaurant were all mixed among the residential dwellings around the turn of the century. By 1914, the Butte city directory listed 62 Chinese businesses, including four physicians who practiced herbal medicine.

Like most of Butte at the time, Chinatown was populated predominantly by men. Many were day laborers, peddlers, merchants or worked in the service industry, but Rossillon said her research showed few, if any, worked underground in the mines.

In the early 1900s, Butte was home to between 400 and 1,000 Chinese. Rossillon said she was unable to more accurately pinpoint the population because many were wary of government census-takers and distanced themselves from American life.

Others, like Quan Loy, wore European clothing and had strong ties to the larger business community. Loy, who was known as "The Mayor of Chinatown," helped form a Chinese Chamber of Commerce and the Chinese Empire Reform Association, which promoted assimilation of Western ways and the overthrow of the Chinese emperor.

An intact medallion from the Chinese Empire Reform Association, featuring the face of a young man who was probably Qing Dynasty emperor Guangxu, was discovered in the dig. Guangxu wanted to establish a constitutional monarchy in China around 1905, but lost his power to his aunt in a coup, angering many Chinese at home and abroad.

Rossillon said the medallion, which was worn as a political statement, was just one example of the insight the artifacts brought into the lives, eating habits and recreations of the neighborhood's denizens.

The crew found nearly 10,000 bones, most of which were from cuts of pork and beef. They found others, however, that were from saltwater fish and even a few lizard bones, probably from geckos, which were imported from China for use in traditional medicines.

Rossillon said that while her team was excited about these discoveries, what they really hoped to find were outhouse locations. They often provide mountains of information for archaeologists to dig through.

"We only found one outhouse, so that was disappointing," she said. "It seems as if the area got indoor plumbing fairly early (between 1905 and 1907)." That didn't prove to be entirely bad news, however. Many of the backyard outhouses which were no longer in use became a sort of trash dump, and Rossillon's crew encountered a few such places where artifacts were numerous.

They found a large number of toiletry items, including perfume and hair tonic bottles, which surprised the dig team.

"At the time when (indoor) plumbing arrived, cleanliness became a priority," said Rossillon.

All of the artifacts have been collected and cleaned and are in the process of being catalogued.

Mai Wah Museum curator Jana Faught said she hopes the museum could have them on exhibit next year, but that will depend on funding.

"This will be incredibly meaningful, and this will certainly enhance our history," Faught said, adding that it will be "the ultimate for history buffs." Reporter Tim Trainor may be reached at tim.trainor@lee.net or at 496-5519.

Artifacts displayed briefly in Uptown Butte on Nov. 17 Some of the Chinese artifacts unearthed in the archaeological dig in Uptown Butte last summer will be displayed Monday, Nov. 17, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Broadway Café, 302 E. Broadway. This will include the unveiling of an opium pipe found in the Mai Wah building at 17 W. Mercury St.

Watch video of the lead archae-ologist unveiling some of the Chinese artifacts at mtstandard.

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