Chinese Railroad Workers in Utah: Connecting Past to Present

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Arming the Resistance: Recent Scholarship in Chinese Diaspora Archaeology" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

As a build up to the 150th Anniversary of the Transcontinental Railroad's completion on May 10, 1869, the Utah Division of State History and the Bureau of Land Management partnered to highlight the unique archaeological landscapes of this construction effort, now located on public lands in northeastern Utah. Over the last two years, archaeologists with these two agencies facilitated over 30 public driving tours of the 87-mile abandoned transcontinental route, now managed as a Scenic Backcountry Byway. Perhaps the most meaningful aspect was connecting the Chinese Railroad Workers Descendants Association to the fragments of their ancestor's lives that still remain in the sagebrush and salt grass. This celebration and the connections made are an example of how archaeology can inform and be informed by an important descendant group, while also leveraging all the hoopla of this anniversary to the betterment of the archaeological record and the stories it can share.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Arming the Resistance: Recent Scholarship in Chinese Diaspora Archaeology   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2020

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 600