6 INTERPRETATIONS The preceding chapters in this report present the data obtained from archaeological and historical research for the District 8 Headquarters Demolition Project: information gleaned from documents, artifacts, seeds, pollen, and soils has been distilled into tables, drawings, photographs, and summaries. In this chapter, information is synthesized and humanized. The topics chosen were guided by questions posed in the research design, but ultimately focused on aspects of archaeology and history specific to this site. Every archaeological study uncovers unique episodes of the past—remnants of individual lives. For sites destined for demolition and development, this is the last chance for these people’s stories to be told. This chapter tells some of these stories. Table 6-1 provides a summary of the important features that were discovered, the people or events they were associated with, and their dates of use. The format of this chapter follows the table outline. The butchered cattle bones, the only material recovered from the Rancho Period, are discussed briefly following the table. The first major topic is the deposits from the late 1880s and the 1890s associated with Starke’s Hotel (later Bradford House). The following sections address aspects of San Bernardino’s Chinatown, where 90 percent of the artifacts were recovered. Included are sections on demographics, life in Chinatown, meal-taking, recreation, and the community’s final decline. 6.1 HOTEL CULTURE Four of the excavated features were in Lot 5 and are associated with the operations of Starke’s Hotel in the 1890s. The artifacts in these collections represent activities of the hotel visitors and staff, reflecting life at this San Bernardino enterprise just before the turn of the century. The history of the hotel is presented first, followed by discussion of the archaeological findings illuminated in the light of the documentary evidence. STARKE’S—THE BEST HOTEL IN TOWN A month after Dudley and Elizabeth Pine retired from the hotel business and left for Santa Barbara, an advertisement in the Guardian (1867b:2) appeared: PINE’S HOTEL, San Bernardino This well-known hotel is open for the reception of guests at all hours of the day or night. The table is abundantly supplied with everything of the best, and the sleeping accommodations of the house are excellent. Attached to the hotel is a BAR, well stocked with the very best WINES, LIQUORS, and CIGARS, of the choicest brands. A BILLIARD TABLE is connected with the hotel. The stages arrive and depart from the hotel. [signed] Aug. Starke The Luck of Third Street: Historical Archaeology Data Recovery Report Caltrans District 8 San Bernardino Headquarters Demolition Project 6.1 Table 6-1 Important Archaeological Features by Type and Association Feature Feature Artifact/Fill Selected EAa No. Type Association/Comments Construction Abandonment MNI MNIb Rancho Period Deposits 8-1 1047 Bone Silted-over butchering remains 1840s — — — concentration 8-1 1048 Bone Silted-over butchering remains 1840s — — — concentration 8-1 1049 Bone Silted-over butchering remains 1840s — — — concentration 8-1 1050 Bone Silted-over butchering remains 1840s — — — concentration Starke’s Hotel/Bradford House Deposits 5-1 1009 Privy Starke’s Hotel/Bradford House 1888–1894 1897 301 219 5-3 1022 Pit Hotel refuse 1897 1897 222 59 5-1 1023 Privy Hotel refuse By 1885 1894 364 308 5-1 1025 Privy Domestic refuse; Anglo hotel By 1885 1897 603 406 employees (?) Chinatown Pits and Privies Filled with Artifacts 7-1 1032 Pit Mostly whole bottles 1920s 1920s 125 78 7-1 1035 Privy Replaced Privy 1058, filled with ca. 1910 1944 6,801 3,933 building contents during demolition 7-1 1056 Privy Earliest privy 1880s ca. 1900 312 129 7-1 1058 Privy Replaced by Privy 1056 1900 ca. 1910 1,745 162 Sheet Refuse and Artifact-filled Drains 7-1 1057/ Sheet Refuse Backyard midden, filled Drain 1002 1880s 1930s 403 79 1002 Drain Wood lined; filled with Sheet 1880s 1910 480 — Refuse 1057 7-1 1031 Drain Contemporary with Drain 1002 1880s 1910 309 65 7-1 1060 Drain Replaced by Drain 1002 ca. 1800 1870s 9 9 Cooking Structures 7-1 1001 Roasting Stone floor; backyard 1880s ca. 1930 49 19 Oven 7-1 1033 Cooking Backyard wok stove? 1880s ca. 1900 45 9 Feature 8-1 1036 Roasting Brick; south of temple; replaced ca. 1930 By 1944 44 17 Oven Roasting Oven 1001 Other Features 8-1 1003 Bldg Footing Wong Nim Store and Temple By 1890 1944 — — 8-1 1005 Dog Burial Backyard; near fence line By 1942 — 1 — Total 14,687 5,692 a - EA = excavation area (see Figure 4-2). b - From Artifact Table 3a for each feature (see Chapter 5). 6.2 The Luck of Third Street Spanish Cattle While archaeologists were excavating on the east end of Chinatown, in what were once the sandy banks of Warm Creek, four deposits of cattle bones were uncovered: Pits 1047, 1048, 1049, and 1050. A minimum of three cattle skulls are represented along with a few associated longbones. The animals were approximately 5 years old and no butchering marks were visible. Were they associated with the Chinese? Were they purposefully buried? To answer these questions, faunal expert Sherri Gust examined the bones and immediately recognized them as a distinctive type typical of Hispanic California. The vast herds of cattle that roamed early California under Spanish and Mexican rule were small and long horned (Burcham 1957). Their body weight was about half as much as a modern steer— only 600 pounds. Their skulls show special adaptations for the support of the long horns. As can be seen in Figure 6-1, the posterior of the skull exhibits a large boss (a bony projection in the center) that develops as the cattle mature. It develops partly in response to the increasing weight of the horns laterally and partly in response to the pull of neck muscles that attach on the back of the skull. Such cattle are common in Californio sites and are discussed in detail in the report on the Ontiveros Adobe (Gust 1982). The skulls and the longbones are much smaller than “improved” livestock of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The lack of butchering marks is typical of the Californio style of butchering where muscles are pulled away from the bone, rather than being cross-cut as in the Euro-American style. Figure 6-1 Long-horned cattle skulls recovered in Pits 1047, 1048, 1049, and 1050. As the excavation area is about 800 feet southeast and directly downslope from the site of the Lúgos’ adobe homes, these bones are probably related to their occupation. The 4,000 head of cattle brought to the ranch by the Lúgos in 1839 established a thriving herd. Individual animals would have been butchered regularly to support the Lúgo household. It appears that the waste was thrown into the creek. Caught and buried in the sandy banks, these bones are the only remnant of San Bernardino’s rancho past found in the project area. Interpretations—6.1 Hotel Culture 6.3 August Starke and his first wife Frances were both born in Germany and migrated to California during the Gold Rush. August had operated a hotel in Petaluma, California, from 1851 to 1866 before migrating south to San Bernardino (Ingersoll 1904:867). He married his second wife, Catherine Clark, an Irish immigrant, in San Bernardino in May 1867, the same month the two took over the Pine’s Hotel. In September, Catherine Starke petitioned in the First Judicial District Court in San Bernardino to become sole proprietor of the hotel. She swore in her affidavit that her application was made “in good faith for the purpose of enabling [her] to support myself and my children, and not with any view to defraud, delay or hinder any creditors or creditors of my husband, and that of the money so to be used in said business not more than five hundred dollars has come either directly or indirectly from my husband” (San Bernardino County 1867:10–11). Several months later, in November 1867, a nearly identical advertisement to the one cited above (but for a comment that the house had recently been “repainted and refurnished throughout”) appeared in the Guardian, but this one was signed by Catherine Starke (Haenszel 1985b:21). Although the statement about defrauding creditors may have been a mere formality, August and Catherine Starke’s later financial problems hint at the possibility that Catherine was, indeed, attempting to protect her investment from her husband’s creditors, at least his future creditors. Catherine Starke signed the document with her mark. She would remain illiterate, unable to write even her name, until the end of her life nearly 40 years later. The Starkes did not complete the purchase of the hotel until 23 January 1868. The price of the Block 15 property, plus several other lots in town, was $4,000 (SBCR 1868:138). Perhaps in order to capitalize on the reputation Dudley and Elizabeth Pine had built during their tenure, the Starkes opted to continue operating the establishment as Pine’s Hotel until around the summer of 1869. On 14 August 1869, the San Bernardino Guardian noted some of the improvements that the Starkes were making to the hotel: Among the many improvements, we are pleased to notice the enlargement of Starke’s (formerly Pine’s) Hotel. This hotel will be entirely remodeled, and has been placed in the hands of skillful and competent workmen. An addition of 24 sleeping rooms, a dining room 20 x 45, ladies parlor, and kitchen are to be added to the present building.