I was a little surprised to learn that Baker City in eastern Oregon had a historic Chinese Cemetery. I thought it would be worth a quick visit.
While this is and has always been a relatively modestly populated community, there was a small but distinctive Chinese presence in the area, the Chinese being mostly men who did hard manual labor like building the railroad and mining. A maximum of around 264 Chinese people lived in the area more than a century ago, comprising about 4% of the region’s population. They were not treated with kindness, and for that matter showed little loyalty to the country they were working in, sending most of the cash they earned back to China.
When they died the Chinese were buried in this plot of land, but in time their bones were dug up and sent back to China for permanent burial. You can see depressions where the graves were dug up for removal of bones. Generally this honor was only extended to men — female bones were generally not returned to China.
You can see a few monuments at the cemetery when you visit today,
There is a small prayer house on site. The building was not intended to be entered, but was where incense, money and notes were burned as spiritual tributes for the deceased.
I’d never visited a site quite like this one, so it was interesting to me.
The Chinese Cemetery is located in Baker City on Windmill Road, just east of the I-84 Exit 30
