Receipt for Special Ticket Issued to Chinese Men for Passage from Carson to Badie, 1871

Carson, 1881. Single sided receipt measuring 7 ¾ x 4 ½ inches. Near fine with a small tear to bottom of page. Near Fine. A receipt issued for passage from Carson to Badie, Nevada, in 1881 aboard the Virginia and Truckee Railroad, issued with a note that reads "Chinamen" in the remarks section. The Virginia and Truckee was originally built to service the Comstock Lode area in Nevada. Chinese, who represented ten percent of Virginia City during the period, referred to Nevada as "Yin Shan," which translates to "Silver Mountain." Chinese people in Nevada held varied jobs in the state, perhaps more so than in other parts of the United States, with an 1870 census listing Chinese merchants, miners, laborers, laundrymen, cooks, gamblers, and harlots. Despite the heavy involvement of Chinese in Nevada during the period, few ephemeral records surface in the trade, likely due to the drops in population caused by the Chinese Exclusion Act, and perhaps also due to the overall population drop when miners left the region.