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A Chinese Pyre in Wheatland was used for funeral ceremonies by Wheatland's Chinese-American Community from the 1870s until February 1886, when Wheatland violently drove all its Chinese residents out of town (as did Marysville). Special paper was burned in a ceremony that was believed to release the spirit after death.

Wheatland remained a sundown town (in which Chinese people and other people of color were threatened with violence if they attempted to live in the city or to remain in it after sundown) until apparently rather recently, although the policy became gradually less overtly stated in public.

The original Chinese Pyre was destroyed, but it was rebuilt in 1978 by the Wheatland Historical Society.

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