Evanston Chinatown

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Evanston Chinatown

• Archaeology
• and
• History
• of
• the
• Evanston
• Chinatown

• Date of Occupation 1869- 1922

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Wyoming
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Location of Chinatown

• Chinatown was located west of the Bear River
  inside the present town of Evanston Wyoming.
• The Chinatown first appeared some time between
  1869 and 1873.
• The remains of Chinatown were burned to the
  ground in 1922.

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Burn zone
Chinatown was burned in 1922.
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Excavations began in 1994
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The ash and charcoal covered the surface of
historic Chinatown and while removing the ash
archaeologists uncovered the foundation of a
laundry built by the Chinese in the 1870s or
1880s.
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Evanston Chinatown
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The first structure uncovered was the laundry
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Volunteer Drew Hutchinson
This map shows the limits of excavations and the
location of the historic laundry within the area
excavated.
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The laundry foundation
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Volunteer Drew Hutchinson
Excavations in the laundry
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The laundry, being uncovered here, was probably
in use from about the mid-1870s until the early
1900s.
bone bed
ceramic fragment
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Laundry Foundation
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To understand what is uncovered requires long
hours of reporting and recording the artifacts
found during the excavations.
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The soil that is removed from the excavations is
screened through two sets of screens and, as
shown here, all items uncovered are collected.
Volunteer Drew Hutchinson
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The soil above the laundry was carefully removed
and carried to the screens in buckets.
Volunteer Drew Hutchinson
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It will take years to analyze what we have found.
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The soy pot and bone tooth brush shown here were
recently uncovered.
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More to Come
The excavations begun in 1994 will continue until
the summer of 2009. We have, however, already
learned much.
Wyoming
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Chinatown Excavations

• Conducted in Evanston Wyoming
• from 1994 to the present.
• Excavations have shown Chinese immigrants had a
  diverse diet.
• They ate pork, sea bass, cuttlefish, turtle,clams
  and also beef.
• Among the plants they ate were carrots, egg
  plant, raspberries,and cereals.

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In the Future

• The excavations will continue in the summer.
• The analysis of the material uncovered will
  continue well into the twenty-first century.

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Other links dealing with Evanston Chinatown

• http//www.wwcc.wy.edu/wyo_hist/