“Men of Iron & Steel: History of Chinese railroad workers in the Siskiyou Mountains”, presented by Victoria Law

June 23rd, Thursday, 7-9pm, U of O at White Stag, 70 NW Couch St., Portland.

Free & all ages.

This lecture event will clearly illustrate the vital but forgotten connection in the history of Chinese in Ashland and Portland.  “In the 1880′s, over 2400 Chinese railroad workers, many if not most of them from Portland, helped build the Oregon and California railroad from Portland through Southern Oregon”, Ms. Law explained, “Overcoming the great Siskiyou Mountains in Southern Oregon, these men of ‘iron and steel’ created a railroad infrastructure that allowed formerly isolated town like Ashland to grow and flourish.”

Victoria Law is Director and Curator of Ashland Historic Railroad Museum located in Ashland, Oregon’s historic railroad district. After retiring from a career in the software industry, Victoria returned to college and graduated cum laude with a Bachelors of Arts in History from Southern Oregon University in 2003. Since that time she has been active in the arts community in Ashland, helping found the Ashland Historic Railroad District Association in 2005, serving on the board of the Southern Oregon Historical Society, and co-founding Ashland Historic Railroad Museum in 2007.

Ms. Law designed and curated Ashland Historic Railroad Museum’s spring 2010 exhibit, “Men of Iron and of Steel: Chinese Railroad Workers in the Siskiyou Mountains.” and is working on a book about Ashland’s early Chinese community, “Seventy Thousand Fire Crackers: The Story of the Chinese People in Victorian Ashland.”