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Chinese joint

A Chinese-owned eating establishment in Echo Springs,[1] Utah Territory in 1870, with late-night operating hours.[1]

Many Chinese immigrants came to the American West working for the railroad. As railroad construction was completed, some Chinese would settle along or near the route and take on other work, usually as cheap labor, working for much less than white workers. They often found work as cooks in lumber and mining camps, at hotels or private homes.

Some Chinese would start their own businesses. Restaurants required little initial capital, so were a reasonable venture. In mining towns with shifts operating around the clock, Chinese-owned restaurants were among the few that kept late-night and early-morning hours, serving hot food at reasonable prices as miners came and went from their shifts.[2]

War of the Silver Kings: Late one Saturday night[1] in July of 1870[3], after a poker game in Echo Springs, Bret Maverick asked Big Mike McComb if there was anywhere in town he could get something to eat at such a late hour. McComb told Bret the only place open was “the Chinese joint down the street.”[1] The restaurant likely catered to the local miners working the late shifts.[3]