Chinese Labor on the Houston & Texas Central Railway

Chinese Labor on the Houston and Texas Central Railway. . By 1861, the Houston and Texas Central Railway (H&TC) extended from Houston to Millican, a distance of 81 miles, but construction was halted during the Civil War. After the war, extension of this important transportation and commerce corridor continued., On behalf of the railroad, General John G. Walker arranged with San Francisco-based labor contractor Chew-Ah-Heung late in 1869 to employ several hundred Chinese laborers to expedite construction of the H&TC. These experienced workers, most from southern China's Guangdong Province, had just completed the Central Pacific Railroad. The group traveled this first transcontinental rail line from Sacramento to St. Louis in December 1869, then rode the steamboat Mississippi through New Orleans to Galveston. Finally, they were taken on the H&TC Railroad to its then-terminus at Calvert. The workers began clearing and grading the right-of-way from Bremond to Steele's Creek (near present-day Groesbeck), working at least as far as Thornton. Kosse was near the midway point of this 20-mile section. The 1870 U.S. Census enumerated ten Chinese laborers boarding together in Limestone County, all men ages 19 to 36. Newspaper accounts reported celebrations of the Chinese New Year in January in Bremond., Historians have noted the significance of this importation of Chinese labor as perhaps the earliest example in both Texas and the South. Some promoters intended it as an experiment to test post-Civil War political and economic ideas about contracting with Chinese laborers to displace African American labor. The initial group stayed only a few months, though some individuals moved to the area permanently after the rail work was done. Their initial experiences and imprint on the land laid the foundation for later generations of Asian Americans in Texas.