The Chung Wah Cemetery, tucked into a quiet corner of old Folsom near the American River, is the burial ground of the Chinese immigrants who came to the Gold Country during and after the 1849 rush. Many worked in the mines, on the railroads, and — in Folsom specifically — as forced labourers in the granite quarrying operation at the state prison.
The cemetery is small and easy to miss but worth finding. A number of the original grave markers survive, and the site offers a corrective to the standard Gold Rush narrative: this was a multicultural rush, and the Chinese community paid some of its highest costs in places exactly like this. The cemetery is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It sits off Natoma Street, close to the American River.