Pilot Butte Hotel - 739 Pilot Butte Ave

The Union Pacific gave this property to Max Kershisnik’s widow and four children as compensation for his death in a mining accident. The family built the hotel in 1923 and lived in the back, renting the front to a grocery store.

Turn left onto Bridger Avenue.

The basement of the North Side Catholic Church across the street was built in 1912. The congregation met in the basement for 13 years while accumulating funds to complete the rest of the building.

Miners threatened to strike in 1875, and the UP recruited hundreds of Chinese men to work in the mines. They lived across the street from where you are walking. With over 600 Chinese in town, “white miners” were outnumbered three to one and accused the Chinese of receiving favoritism from the UP. A fight between white and Chinese miners over working rooms in No. 6 Mine started the events of September 2, 1885. Hundreds of Chinese were driven from their homes, Chinatown was burned, and twenty-eight Chinese were killed.

This incident was part of a wide-spread, anti-Chinese movement throughout the Western United States. As a result of the riot, the United States signed a treaty with China in which payment of $147,748.74 was made for damages to Chinese property; and military protection was promised to the returning Chinese. Two hundred fifty soldiers established Camp Pilot Butte on five and a half acres located between Chinatown and “white man’s town.” This is the only American city outside the post Civil War South to be occupied by U.S. Army troops and is believed to be the only location of an international treaty post within the continental United States.

The parking lot on your left was the camp parade ground. Soldiers’ barracks were on the east side of the parade grounds and officers’ quarters on the west side. Other camp buildings included a hospital, commissary, canteen, bakery, beer cellar, ice house, barber shop, sergeant’s day room, school house, guard house, gun shed, carpenter shop, wagon shed, chicken houses, stables and corrals.

The Military officers contributed much to the social life of Rock Springs. The camp “Pork and Bean Ball” was a community highlight. After the soldiers left in 1899 to fight in the Spanish-American war, the UP used the barracks as apartments for their employees. The two-story frame house at the back of the parade grounds was built as a home for mine superintendent.