Deadwood's Pioneer Merchant: Wong Fee Lee and His Wing Tsue Bazaar
Copyright © 2009 by the South Dakota State Historical Society. All Rights Reserved. EDITH C. WONG, EILEEN FRENCH, ROSE ESTEP FOSHA Deadwood’s Pioneer Merchant Wong Fee Lee and His Wing Tsue Bazaar As word of gold in the Black Hills spread across the country in the wake of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer’s 1874 expedition of discovery, thousands of fortune-seekers rushed into western Dakota Territory. Among the throngs hoping to profit from the new discov- eries were Chinese immigrants, many of whom were already adept at both mining gold and “mining the miners” by selling them goods and services. One of these individuals was Wong Fee Lee, who arrived in Deadwood in 1876 and over the next several decades became the most prominent member of the Black Hills Chinese community.1 Three con- tiguous properties where he lived, raised a family, and carried on his mercantile business and mining interests were located on lower Main Street in the National Historic Landmark city of Deadwood. His store, built in 1885, and an adjoining structure built in 1896 became historic properties known as the Wing Tsue (pronounced “wing-SHWAY”) buildings. From 1876 into the 1920s, three generations of the Wong 1. Over the years, several works have treated the Chinese in the Black Hills, includ- ing, most recently, Liping Zhu and Rose Estep Fosha, Ethnic Oasis: The Chinese in the Black Hills (Pierre: South Dakota State Historical Society Press, 2004). See also Mildred Fielder, The Chinese in the Black Hills (Lead, S.Dak.: Bonanza Trails Publications, 1972); Bob Lee, ed., Gold, Gals, Guns, Guts (Pierre: South Dakota State Historical Society Press, 2004); Watson Parker, Gold in the Black Hills (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1966); Joe Sulentic, Deadwood Gulch: The Last Chinatown (Deadwood, S.Dak.: By the Author, 1975); Daniel Liestman, “The Chinese in the Black Hills, 1876–1932,” Journal of the West 27 (January 1988): 74–83; and Grant K.
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