Just FYI - I've lived in China for 9 years and know that they're pretty stellar at faking things. Flea markets and antique booths on the sides of roads abound, and tourists love buying up their wares, which are simply counterfeit heirlooms. So if you found this in a US neighborhood, chances are higher that not that it's a fake souvenir rather than a genuine early 1900's Chinese coin.
Not impossible. Just unlikely.
As many Chinese as there were here in the US. helping to build the railroads, they brought a lot of their home country coins with them. We find lots of Chinese coins in the ghost towns.