Pon Yam was an important man in Idaho's early history, and some modern-day residents want to restore his bygone celebrity.
During the 1860s gold rush, Pon Yam was a merchant in the state's leading city - the boom town of Idaho City. At its peak population of 20,000, it was the largest settlement between St. Louis and San Francisco.His 130-year-old house is believed to be the last remaining original Chinese residence in Idaho City. And current residents concerned about the commercialism eroding their community's heritage want to make it the centerpiece of a museum preserving Idaho City's rich history.
"It's one of the most historic buildings in Idaho City," says Byron Johnson, an Idaho Supreme Court justice and Idaho City resident. "Certainly, it's the last one that we're probably going to have a chance to save of the first buildings."
Johnson is among the handful of people in the historic mining community 45 minutes from Boise who are battling to keep it authentic while avoiding the glitz of a "recreated" mining town.
They've lost a little ground already. The old-timers speak with some scorn of modern buildings in sight of Highway 21 dressed up to look like the real thing. After people tour a visitor center, "They have the feeling that's the historic Idaho City, and they get back in their cars and go away," said longtime resident Kenn Smith.
In a state that doesn't have many buildings from the territorial days of the 1860s, Idaho City is full of them, and they aren't "recreated."
The Masonic Lodge, rebuilt in 1865 after a fire, is the oldest building west of the Mississippi River still used for Masonic meetings. An 1855 printed charter, said to be just one of two surviving from that era, hangs on the wall.
The remains of Idaho's territorial prison, built in 1864, stand a block away. The Boise County Courthouse has been in use 122 years and for anybody interested, the handwritten records of court proceedings from the 1860s are bound in large leather journals stored on courtroom shelves.
The Miner's Exchange, built in 1865 and for decades later a rowdy bar, is used by Boise County officials. Across the street, the Boise Basin Mercantile, circa 1865, was where Frank Church launched his presidential campaign over a century later. It's believed to be the oldest business building still in use in Idaho.
But there's little emphasis on the Chinese immigrants who were such an important part of the area's development. When gold was discovered in 1862, Chinese flocked to work the mines.
The 1870 census showed 1,754 Chinese in Boise County alone. When the gold rush ebbed after a few years, many remained behind to work mines abandoned by others. In 1880 there were still 1,225 Chinese in the county.
A leader of his people who overcame the ignorance and prejudice of the days, Pon Yam amassed a considerable fortune. He sported a diamond ring of probably three carats.
To end a tong war in the 1870s, he paid off both sides. Although the records aren't clear, he apparently left about 1885 and returned to China.
Over the years, his home has been used for storage by local businessmen. At one time it served as a photography studio. It's still privately owned, but Johnson, Smith and others hope to acquire it.
Smith has done some excavating and has thousands of old bottles and other items from the Chinese days. Johnson says people are startled to learn the area once had such a big Chinese presence.
"People who don't have the background, they come in here and go to our little museum, the little corner where we have all these Chinese things. You can just see them backing off, wondering what it's all about."
But like Smith and Johnson, 86-year-old Minetta Schrite has a sense that time is running out for protecting what's left of Idaho City's history.
Its population is just over 300, but it's a year-round tourist destination. Outlying areas of Boise County are developing rapidly as people look for a place to live near, but not in, Boise.
The newcomers and the growth they foster are clashing with the preservationists.