Tagged: Chinese

The "world's most comprehensive collection" of opium smoking paraphernalia has a new home; it's at the University of Idaho. A writer and collector, originally from San Diego, donated the exquisite antiques. Correspondent Tom Banse has the intriguing back story of how these so-called "instruments of self-destruction" came to a small Northwest town.

A granite memorial arrived by helicopter Tuesday at a remote cove in Hells Canyon on the Idaho-Oregon border. The stone will mark the site where a large group of Chinese gold miners was massacred way back in 1887. Correspondent Tom Banse reports.

Private contributions paid for the engraving and transportation of the 1,100 pound granite marker. Memorial project treasurer Lyle Wirtanen says the stone was inscribed in English, Chinese and the native Nez Perce language.

Rare, once-lost historic records about pioneer Chinese immigrants to the Northwest have found a new life online. The digital archive is hosted by Oregon State University. A Chinese-American civic group hopes the document trove can help families locate ancestors gone missing early in the last century. Correspondent Tom Banse reports.