Although the labor of the Chinese workers who built the first transcontinental railroad (and other railroads in the western part of the country) was pivotal to the development of the United States, these workers have never received the scholarly attention they deserve. The incredibly rich work of archaeologists who have studied the thousands of pieces of material culture gathered along western rail lines promises to open vibrant new dimensions of historical recovery of this key chapter in the intertwined social, economic, and political histories of China and the United States.