Gee Hee Chin

CHIN Gee Hee (1844-1929)

Railway Contractor 

Born in Taishan, Guangdong Province, China, Chin Gee Hee came to the United States to work in the mines and lumber mills. In Seattle 1873, he became a junior partner in the Wa Chong Company where he shifted from import-export to labor contracting. In 1888, Chin set up Quong Tuck Company, his own independent labor contracting company that eventually supplied workers to the Great Northern Railway, and the Seattle and Walla Walla Railroad and Transportation. He returned to China in 1904 and developed South China’s first railway named the Xinning Railway Company. 

(Portrait by Jamie Lomax, SFSU 2017)