Pekin Noodle Parlor

Butte’s Chinese community settled on this block in the 1880s, filling its thoroughfares and alleyways with dwellings, club rooms, laundries, restaurants, and stores selling Chinese goods. This business block is a lone survivor displaying Asian roots. G. E. DeSnell designed the building on speculation for Butte attorney F. T. McBride, and when it was completed in 1909, Hum Yow moved his Mercury Street noodle parlor to the second floor and soon owned the property. Upstairs noodle parlors were common in urban Chinese communities, and the Pekin’s central stair and sign drew customers for many years. Its location near Butte’s once teeming red light district fueled local legends about the Pekin’s curtained booths, but these booths were a fixture in Asian restaurants and simply gave diners privacy. The two ground-floor storefronts housed Hum Yow’s Chinese Goods and Silks and G. P. Meinhart’s sign painting business. Hum Yow and his wife Bessie Wong, both California-born first-generation Chinese, raised three children in the rear living quarters. The Hums retired to California in 1952, and several more generations of the family have maintained this landmark business.

Butte-Silver Bow (balance), Montana · United States