He came in 2023 to detail the historic Chinese presence in Montana, which at one point made up more than a tenth of the state’s population. Then he came in 2025 to talk about how the Chinese kept their traditions alive, including new year and burial practices, in the American West despite mounting challenges.

Now Mark T. Johnson comes to talk Sept. 9 about how Chinese Montanans grew food for the tables and introduced whole communities to fresh vegetables they’d never seen before.
Johnson, raised in Great Falls but now a resident of Helena, spent some years in Shanghai and has made it a mission to shine a light on Asian aspects of Montana life and history.

In his latest presentation, Feeding the Frontier: A History of Chinese Vegetable Gardens in Montana, Johnson shows the impact and role of Chinese gardeners.

In towns across Montana, Chinese gardeners were once a familiar sight—walking the streets with baskets of fresh vegetables or cultivating fields on the edges of growing communities. Drawing on farming traditions from southern China, they introduced techniques that produced remarkable crops in the challenging conditions of the Mountain West.

Their vegetables fed mining camps, railroad towns, and city neighborhoods, becoming essential to local diets. Yet their success also brought hostility, as anti-Chinese groups called for boycotts and sometimes turned to violence.

This talk explores the history of Chinese vegetable gardens in Montana through maps, photographs, newspaper accounts, and community memories, highlighting the resilience and impact of these often-overlooked gardeners.

Doors open 5 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 9, for history happy hour in Hollensteiner-Stahl Hall; free presentation starts 6 p.m.