SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA—An excavation ahead of subway construction in eastern San Francisco has uncovered pieces of nineteenth-century industrial sewing machines. The machines are thought to have been used in the basement of a Chinatown factory that was destroyed in the earthquake and fire of 1906. “There’s very little that remains of the Chinatown prior to the [1906] earthquake, so this is basically the last remains of the earliest Chinatown,” Adrian Praetzellis of Sonoma State University told The San Francisco Examiner. Archaeologist and oral historian Dana Shew, also of Sonoma State, will research the site’s address, 1018 Stockton Street. She may be able to learn the names of the people who worked in the factory. “If you think about the history of San Francisco and all the things that have happened over time, it’s the same areas that keep seeing development and change over and over. There’s a whole city underneath the ground that we can’t see, and we want to make sure we don’t lose that,” commented Sarah Jones, director of environmental planning for the city of San Francisco. To read about similar discoveries, go to "America's Chinatowns."
