Monday, 25th February 2008 (1659 views)

A northern Nevada town's links with a nearly-forgotten Chinatown have been revived thanks to one man's homemade museum, according to reports.

The LA Times says that Larry De Leeuw decided to establish the museum in the garage of his home to acknowledge the contribution that Chinese labourers made in settling the town of Lovelock, Nevada.

Many of those who built Lovelock's Chinatown had journeyed to the United States to pan for gold during the Californian gold rush. They were among the army of Chinese labourers who helped to build the Central Pacific Railroad, the California to Utah stretch of the United States' first trans-continental railway.

The newspaper reports that Mr De Leeuw became interested in the history of Lovelock after hearing about it while researching the history of another Chinatown in Marysville, California.

Previous excavations in Lovelock had uncovered 119 gold coins from the old site of its Chinatown, along with firecracker labels, medicines and a snuff tobacco jar.

California has a number of Chinatowns, including San Francisco's, which was established in the 1850s as a base for prospectors during the California gold rush. It remains one of the largest in the world.

 

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