China Row - Helena, MT - Montana Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

This metal sign stands near the fence separating China Row from the main cemetery, and it reads:

Chinese immigrants came to America with the first California gold rushes in the 1840s. They were among the waves of frontier adventurers who came to Montana in the 1860s seeking pay dirt in the rocky gulches at Bannack, Alder and here at Last Chance in the 1860s. By 1870, Chinese made up 10% of the territorial population. In the face of anti-Chinese legislation and racial discrimination, they stayed to settle in towns across Montana. As placer gold played out, Chinese miners looked to other opportunities. Chinese workers laid the tracks of the Northern Pacific across Montana in the 1880s, and they built the Mullan Tunnel making rail travel possible across the Great Divide. Here in Helena, a substantial Chinese community operated a variety of businesses, provided services and paid local taxes.

Montana's Chinese population dwindled into the 20th century. In the 1970s, urban renewal erased all vestiges of Helena's early Chinese neighborhoods. Only a few descendants of Chinese pioneers remain in Helena today. Along with the 200 burials placed here in China Row between 1892 and 1941 were colorful offerings, religious objects and altars. These tributes to the dead were long ago vandalized and desecrated. During the 1940s, relatives removed perhaps a dozen graves and returned the bones to ancestral soil in China. Evidence of those exhumations is clearly evident. Most of the dead, however, lie today in the untended plots of side the green and peaceful landscaped cemetery grounds. Five distinct rows and a few headstones are all that mark the pioneers who rest in this wind-swept field among the prairie grass and prickly pear.

Text provided by the Montana Historical Society, 2001

Describe the area and history: The cemetery is pretty clear that they don't want you back here, with multiple signs advising against trespassing. As the sign indicates, China Row is practically neglected in terms of maintenance when compared with the main Forestvale Cemetery, and there have been some efforts over the last few years to identify graves using sniffer dogs. Progress on restoration will probably take time, as those holding the purse strings will need to be convinced that China Row should be treated like any part of Forestvale. There are some stakes out there, denoting the rows, and the remains of a funerary burner are hiding in the brush. A few headstones remain, and those with a good eye can spot them, including one or two in the distance shots in the gallery. These folks may be neglected, but they are not forgotten. Google Maps captures an interesting visitor in front of the sign.

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