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Show 1 dD(D) Years Ag 1Todlay Park City's Chinatown by Rettina Moench Dooley "Park City vs. Charley Sing, Gin Gay. On, Yak, and Shong: Opium Smoking. Discharged." That sort of entry in the Justice Court minutes was quite common 100 years ago. After all, there was a thriving Chineses community in Park City, and they maintained the traditional practices they had brought with them on the long ocean voyage from what the ancients called the "Celestial Kingdom" China. The "Celestials" first came to Utah to labor on the Central Pacific Railroad, and later on the Union Pacific and Utah Eastern Railroads spur lines into Park City. Much to the chagrin of native Americans, the Chinese were the preferred railroad labor force because they would accept lower pay. For instance, in 1882 Caucasian laborers were receiving $1.75 per day for sledging railroad spikes on the local line, while the Orientals gratefully pocketed $1.10. Once the railroad was completed in the early 1880s, the Chinese found themselves without work. But it was easy for them to see by scanning the burgeoning silver mining camp of Park City that the promise of a livelihood was at hand. The enterprising Celestials found work as cooks, waiters and porters. Others operated laundries or sold vegetables vegeta-bles from baskets that teetered from poles slung across their shoulders. Naturally enough, the Chinese preferred the company of their own to the pasty white people whose language, customs and ungracious manner were wholly incomprehensible. incomprehen-sible. They were please when, in an effort to encourage them to settle, the Ontario Mine Company offered them land east of Silver Creek parallel to Main Street. One by one, tiny shacks were built, one attached to the next until a row of buildings blossomed. The Park Mining Record often would comment about the Celestials, noting that they sportedthe peculiar, traditional dress of their homeland: baggy pants, slippers, quilted jackets. Many wore t heir hair down in long queues down their backs or tucked up under a cap. For the most part, the townspeople towns-people treated the Chinese with respect, if from a distance. There were, however, forms of discrimination, discrimina-tion, the most obvious of which was the building of "China Bridge" between Rossie Hill and Main Street. The residents of the hill objected to having to descend into the Chinese community to reach Main Street, unnerved, perhaps, by the smell of burning opium, the odd foods and eating utensils, and the dark, oval eyes that seemed to reflect something mysterious and heathen- iy. The bridge, painted bright red, allowed pedestrians to walk over Chinatown from Marsac Avenue to the west side of Silver Creek. Mischievous Rossie Hill children delighted in standing on the bridge and pelting the tin roofs of the shacks with snowballs and stones, waiting just long enough to watch a greybeard shuffle outside before they ran off, laughing. The Park Record made mention of other practices that hinted of discrimination: "The Chinese laun-drymen laun-drymen made a protest to the City Council . . . they claim that the city "dads" tax them too high for carrying on their laundry business." (In fact, by 1886, Chinese laundries were prohibited on Main Street.) Despite how exotic some of their customs seemed, they were apparently appar-ently not as offensive as some of the miners' habits, as evidenced by the Park Record's police report in October 1884: Whereas Charley Sing, Gin Gay, On, Yak, and Shong were discharged for the offense of opium smoking, Henry Jabrellson and Thomas McCormick were each fined $5 for being "plain drunk." |