Distinctly Montana Magazine

D I S T I N C T L Y M O N T A N A M A G A Z I N E • F A L L 2 0 2 1 40 A sign that reads "Notice. Do not molest or shoot Chinese." lived "Alien Law" that tried to keep Chinese workers from purchasing or owning property, including placer mines. Historical evidence suggests it was scantly enforced. Fol- lowing a case involving a Deer Lodge County mine owner named Fauk Lee, the law was struck down by the territorial supreme court. Many Chinese mining interests were suc- cessful, and large sums of money were exchanged—just in 1871 and 1872, Chinese companies bought some $106,600 worth of mining claims in the German Gulch area. In today's money, that would be about $2.2 million. As more Chinese arrived, they became an important demographic of Montana's population. Though there were only around 2,000 Chinese emigrants in Montana in the year 1870, you might also consider that that rep- resented about 10 percent of the population of the territory. By 1890, the heyday of Chinese emigra- tion to Montana and the United States in general, there were 2,532 Chinese immigrants living here. Inevitably, gold mining declined in Montana, but advancements in technology and demand led to silver and copper mining, which would dom- inate the state's mining efforts for more than a half-century. Many Chinese emigrants pivoted from mining to commercial industries that supported mining, such as operating laundries, vegetable gardens, dry goods stores, medical practices, and other ventures. At the same time, Chinese labor was important in the construction and timely completion of the Northern Pacific Railroad. There were also those markets that, though they proved popular with some significant portion of the public, were not entirely "re- spectable" at that time: places to gamble, to smoke opium, and even, according to Copper Camp, stores that sold fine "French lingerie and silk hosiery," establishments set up, not coincidentally, in the red-light district. SILVER BOW ARCHIVES

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