Lee Chung, Chariton & the Year of the Rat

Were it not for a brief news item in The Chariton Democrat of Feb. 16, 1888, we never would have known that the arrival of the Chinese New Year --- in lunar and zodiac terms a Year of the Rat --- had been celebrated in Lucas County a few days earlier.

"Lee Chung and his friends at the depot," The Democrat reported, "celebrated Chinese New Year's last Saturday in an appropriate manner."

The rat ranks first in the Chinese zodiac and represents wisdom. If you were fortunate enough to have been born in one of these auspicious years, you'd have something in common with Prince Harry and are likely to be intelligent, charming, quick-witted and practical.

At the time, the depot --- open 24 hours a day --- was the most cosmopolitan place in Lucas County, located as it was at the intersection of the main-line C.B.&Q. route linking East and West coasts, a southern branch to Kansas City via St. Joe, and a northern branch to Des Moines via Indianola. In addition to waiting and baggage rooms, it housed a large restaurant and a lunch counter at platform level and a hotel upstairs.

It sounds as of some who worked there were, like Lee Chung, Chinese.

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Lee Chung first appears in Chariton during early May, 1887, when it was announced under the heading "New Laundry" that "Lee Chung has opened a first-class Chinese Laundry on the southeast corner of the square, where he will always be ready to do the very best laundry work on the shortest notice, and on reasonable terms. He asks the patronage of the people of Chariton and promises satisfaction in every particular."

You can see where Lee's place of business was located (although his name is misspelled) on this drawing of the Chariton square published several times as an advertising promotion on the front page of Democrat issues during 1889. He had rented the somewhat decrepit frame building in this spot from John Branner's heirs.

We don't know where he had lived and worked before arriving in Chariton although there seem to have been connections to Ottumwa. By 1888, the laundry operation had been expanded to include a shop offering gifts and goods imported from Asia, as indicated in the large advertisement he placed many times in The Democrat during 1888 and 1889.

During late 1889, however, Victoria Dewey --- one of the Branner daughters --- decided to tear down Lee's building as well as its neighbor on the corner and construct the two-story brick block that stands there now --- formerly housing Chariton Floral, now a furniture store. It was finished during 1890.

Faced with the need to move his business, Lee seems to have decided to move it to another town. We have no idea where he went or what became of him, only that for a few brief and shining months it was possible to buy in Chariton a $2 brand of tea, "the exhilarating influence of which will make a man forget that he is born to die."