Chinese Railroad Worker Interments in Nevada and Utah, 1868-1869

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Construction of Central Pacific’s portion of the Transcontinental Railroad involved employment of thousands of Chinese workers. This exceptionally difficult and hazardous work resulted in the deaths of hundreds of workers over the five years that contract Chinese workers were part of the effort. While the bones of many of these casualties were later collected and reinterred in China, a custom followed by many Chinese, initial burial locations along the railroad are poorly documented. In fact, only a few archaeological projects in California and Nevada have revealed such interments, none in Utah. Results of several recent human remains detection dog surveys along the original railroad right-of-way may well represent small groupings of such interments, dating to 1868 and 1869. Follow up research has revealed intriguing railroad documents and maps that suggest a pattern that may have been followed for interment which could reveal additional sites in both Nevada and Utah.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SHA 2023 General Sessions   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow