Quick Links

Cultural history revisited

By Tim Velder

Transfer of Chinese artifacts to Deadwood begins

The massive project of moving a big chunk of Deadwood’s history back to Deadwood has begun, according to Deadwood Historic Preservation officials.

The South Dakota. Archaeological Research Center in Rapid City, has processed and cataloged thousands of Chinese artifacts recovered from four years of excavations along Deadwood’s lower Main Street earlier this decade.

The state is ready transfer possession of the items back to the city of Deadwood, as part of an agreement that dates back to 1990.

The Deadwood City Commission approved spending up to $1,575 to pay a moving company to haul the items from Rapid City to Deadwood City Hall.  

“It’s a pretty big undertaking,” Deadwood Historic Preservation staffer Mike Runge said.

According to Runge there are 14 boxes of intact bottles, more than 370 boxes of artifacts, plus some boxes of unscreened soil, boxes of brick and some oversized metal pieces that don’t fit into boxes.

City officials will meet with the movers to start the project.

“We have the ability and desire to become a depository for those artifacts,” said Deadwood Historic Preservation Officer Kevin Kuchenbecker.

A temporary storage area has been created in the basement of Deadwood City Hall. The basement is already in use as a secure storage area for other Deadwood historical items.

Deadwood city staff will cross check the state’s inventory and match it with its database.

“The state did a phenomenal job and cataloged all the main pieces of the collection,” Runge said. 

The city will spend the next year or two planning for the public display of the collection. Initial plans are to make a permanent display somewhere, plus traveling displays for interested museums or other community facilities.  

Chinese arrived with gold rush

The Chinese community played an integral part in the development of Deadwood. Immigrants began arriving in Deadwood shortly after the gold rush in 1876, in numbers estimated to be between 200 and 400. Chinatown, also referred to as the “Badlands,” was quickly set up at the lower end of Main Street. Although some were miners, most found employment in laundries and restaurants and as house servants.

Some Chinese became prominent business owners. Chinese families owned or managed the OK Cafe and the Hi Kee grocery and drugstore. Fee Lee Wong owned one of the most popular Chinese businesses in Deadwood, the Wing Tsue emporium.

When the gold rush ended, the Chinese began leaving Deadwood to return home to China or to pursue their fortunes elsewhere. By the 1930s, all the Chinese population had left.

Some preliminary discoveries of Deadwood’s Chinatown were made in 1990, but a full-scale excavation began in 2001, when a permitted building demolition uncovered scads of pieces.

Gene Johner got permission to raze the former “Chicken Louies” building in lower Main Street in 2001, when many pieces of china, opium bottles and even an 1875 Liberty quarter were found.

Johner and the city of Deadwood hired state archaeologists to dig the site, with the city ultimately owning the finds.

More digs were conducted in the following years, with the final investigation being done in 2004.