The stench of burning lingered in the air, a grim prelude to the horror that awaited them. Mingled with the acrid smell was a sickly sweet odor – the unmistakable scent of decaying flesh. For the six hundred Chinese coal miners crammed into boxcars, this olfactory assault was just the beginning of their nightmare. They had been promised passage to San Francisco, to safety, after the terror they had endured. But the train rattled to a halt, the heavy boxcar doors groaned open, and the setting sun cast long shadows, revealing a horrifying truth: they were back in Rock Springs, Wyoming Territory.
Stepping onto the tracks, they were met with a scene of devastation. Rock Springs’ Chinatown, their home, was reduced to ashes. More chillingly, the streets still held the gruesome evidence of the violence that had driven them away – the unburied, mangled bodies of their friends, family, and community members, victims of a brutal massacre perpetrated by a white mob of coal miners just days before.
“Mangled and decomposed,” survivors later recounted to a Chinese diplomat in New York, the remains “were being eaten by dogs and hogs.”
And now, the Union Pacific Railroad, the very company that employed them, expected these men to bury their dead, to erase the atrocity from their minds, and to return to work in the mines. Their temporary housing? The same boxcars that had brought them back to this scene of carnage.
The seeds of this tragedy had been sown long before that September evening in 1885. The arrival of Chinese laborers in America stretched back to the California Gold Rush of 1849. Drawn by the promise of wealth, these sojourners, as they called themselves, sought to earn a fortune and return to their families in China. California, in its burgeoning economy, initially welcomed their labor. Chinese immigrants filled vital roles in agriculture, manufacturing, and industry.
Rock Springs’ Mine No. 2, a major coal source for the Union Pacific Railroad in Wyoming, highlighting the industry where racial tensions escalated leading to the massacre.
When the ambitious project of the transcontinental railroad commenced, pushing eastward from Sacramento across the formidable Sierra Nevada Mountains, Chinese workers proved indispensable. Despite their smaller stature, they were resilient, diligent, and remarkably tough. The work was perilous – blasting tunnels through solid rock, carving railway ledges into sheer cliffs. Of the estimated 12,000 Chinese laborers who built the Central Pacific, around 1,200 perished on the job. In 1869, the Central Pacific and Union Pacific met in Utah, completing the transcontinental railroad, a monumental achievement that simultaneously displaced thousands of workers.
Despite the job losses, the Chinese remained. Their frugal lifestyle, living communally to save money, allowed them to accept lower wages. This practice, born of necessity and cultural difference, became a source of intense resentment among white workers, who accused them of stealing jobs and depressing wages.
Chinese immigrants aboard the steamship Alaska in 1876, representing the wave of migration to the United States and the growing anti-Chinese sentiment of the era.
Racial animosity escalated. In July 1870, San Francisco witnessed large anti-Chinese demonstrations, signaling a growing wave of xenophobia. The violence turned deadly in Los Angeles in October 1871 when a conflict between Chinese criminal gangs spiraled into a brutal massacre. White mobs descended upon Chinatown, murdering 23 Chinese residents with impunity; no one was ever prosecuted.
Yet, the Chinese continued to arrive, driven by economic hardship and the dream of a better future, always intending to return to their homeland. Violence against them spread across the West, from Arizona to Nevada and California. In 1882, the U.S. Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, attempting to curb Chinese immigration, but loopholes and inconsistent enforcement kept the issue unresolved and tensions simmering.
Coal was the lifeblood of the Union Pacific Railroad, dictating its route through southern Wyoming. The company’s lucrative coal mines in Carbon, Rock Springs, and Almy, near Evanston, fueled its vast network. When the Union Pacific faced financial difficulties, it resorted to wage cuts for miners to maintain profitability. Further squeezing their workers, the company mandated that miners and their families purchase goods at company stores, where prices were inflated. These exploitative practices ignited labor unrest, leading to strikes over wages and the oppressive company store system.
Following a strike in 1871, the Union Pacific fired striking workers and replaced them with Scandinavian immigrants willing to accept lower pay and company terms. In 1875, after another strike, the company again turned to Chinese laborers to suppress wages and break union power.
This strategy proved effective for the company. Federal troops were deployed to quell both strikes, ensuring the company’s victory. After the 1875 strike, the Rock Springs mines resumed operation with a workforce composition drastically shifted: approximately 150 Chinese miners and only 50 white miners. By 1885, the imbalance had intensified, with nearly 600 Chinese miners compared to 300 white miners in Rock Springs.
The white miners, primarily immigrants of Irish, Scandinavian, English, and Welsh descent, resided in downtown Rock Springs. The Chinese community was segregated in “Chinatown,” located northeast of the town center, across Bitter Creek and a bend in the railroad tracks. The company provided rudimentary housing for Chinese miners, while Chinese entrepreneurs who established businesses – herb shops, laundries, noodle restaurants, and social clubs – built their own shacks.
Despite working alongside each other daily in the mines, a deep chasm of cultural and linguistic difference separated the white and Chinese communities. They existed in parallel, with minimal interaction or understanding. This lack of familiarity fostered prejudice and dehumanization, making it easier for each group to view the other with suspicion and hostility.
The economic reality of Chinese miners accepting lower wages fueled resentment among white workers, creating a powder keg of racial and economic tension. White miners joined the burgeoning Knights of Labor union, seeking to improve their working conditions and wages. In 1884, following yet another strike, Rock Springs mine managers were instructed to hire exclusively Chinese laborers, further inflaming the situation.
The summer of 1885 witnessed escalating threats and violence against Chinese individuals in Cheyenne, Laramie, and Rawlins. Threatening posters appeared in railroad towns, warning Chinese residents to leave Wyoming Territory or face dire consequences. Company officials, seemingly indifferent or perhaps intentionally provocative, ignored these ominous signs and union warnings.
The spark that ignited the Rock Springs Massacre occurred on the morning of September 2, 1885, in Mine No. 6. A fight erupted between white and Chinese miners, culminating in the fatal bludgeoning of a Chinese miner with a pickaxe. Another Chinese miner was severely beaten. A foreman eventually intervened to stop the violence, but the damage was done.
Instead of returning to work, the white miners went home, arming themselves with guns, hatchets, knives, and clubs. They converged on the railroad tracks near Mine No. 6, north of downtown and Chinatown. While some voices urged calm, the majority gathered at the Knights of Labor hall for a meeting before heading to local saloons. As tension mounted, saloon owners, sensing impending violence, closed their doors.
In Chinatown, unaware of the brewing storm, many Chinese miners were observing a holiday, staying home from work.
Shortly after noon, a mob of 100 to 150 armed white men, primarily miners and railroad workers, reassembled at the railroad tracks near Mine No. 6. They were joined by women and even children. Around 2 PM, the mob fragmented. Half advanced towards Chinatown via a plank bridge over Bitter Creek. Others approached using the railroad bridge, leaving some men behind at both bridges to prevent escape. A third group ascended the hill towards Mine No. 3, positioned north and across the tracks from Chinatown. Chinatown was effectively encircled.
A period illustration depicting the Rock Springs Massacre, capturing the brutality of the attack on the Chinese community.
At Mine No. 3, white attackers opened fire on Chinese workers, killing several. The mob then surged into Chinatown from multiple directions, dragging Chinese men from their homes and shooting others who fled into the streets. Most residents desperately tried to escape, plunging into Bitter Creek, running along the railroad tracks, or scrambling up the steep bluffs into the surrounding hills. Some, in their panic, ran directly into the mob and were slaughtered. Accounts indicate that white women also participated in the violence.
The mob systematically looted homes and businesses in Chinatown before setting them ablaze. The fires drove more Chinese from hiding, only to be killed in the streets. Some perished in the inferno, trapped in cellars, while others succumbed to their wounds, thirst, and exposure in the hills and prairies that night.
With Chinatown engulfed in flames, the mob turned their attention to the company officials responsible for hiring Chinese laborers, ordering them to leave town on the next train. They complied. Sweetwater County Sheriff Joseph Young in Green River, 14 miles away, learned of the massacre about an hour after it began. He rushed to Rock Springs by special train, but found no one willing to join a posse. Powerless to intervene, he and a small group focused on protecting company property from the fire.
Territorial Governor Francis E. Warren in Cheyenne received news of the atrocities late that afternoon. Union Pacific officials dispatched a special train from Omaha, Nebraska, arriving in Cheyenne around midnight. Warren joined them, and by daybreak on September 3, they were in Rock Springs.
Governor Warren emerged as the decisive figure. He immediately telegraphed the Army and President Grover Cleveland in Washington D.C., requesting federal troops to restore order. At Warren’s urging, the Union Pacific dispatched a train to slowly patrol the tracks between Rock Springs and Green River, rescuing stranded Chinese miners, providing them with food, water, and blankets.
A political cartoon by Thomas Nast from 1885, satirizing the hypocrisy of American “enlightenment” amidst the violence of the Rock Springs Massacre.
In Rock Springs, Warren met with company officials and then with representatives of the white miners. The miners issued their demands: no Chinese would ever again reside in Rock Springs, no one would be arrested for the murders and arson, and dissent would be met with violence.
Demonstrating resolve, Governor Warren repeatedly left his railroad car and walked along the depot platform in full view of the now-subdued crowds. No violence ensued, and his actions projected an image of control.
Meanwhile, in Evanston, Wyoming Territory, 100 miles west of Rock Springs, Uinta County Sheriff J.J. LeCain was on high alert. Evanston also had a large Chinese population working in the coal mines at nearby Almy. White miners in Almy had also stopped work, and armed groups were forming in the streets. Fearing a repeat of Rock Springs, LeCain telegraphed Governor Warren.
With no territorial militia at his disposal and still awaiting word on federal troops, Warren traveled to Evanston on September 4. LeCain deputized 20 men, barely sufficient to maintain a fragile peace. On September 5, a small detachment of federal troops arrived in Rock Springs. On September 6, striking white miners at Almy threatened Chinese workers, warning them they would not leave the mines alive if they attempted to work. Troops escorted the Chinese from Almy to the relative safety of Evanston’s larger Chinatown. The company assured them their property in Almy would be protected, but as soon as the Chinese were gone, white residents looted their homes.
By this point, the overwhelming desire among the Chinese was to leave Wyoming. Ah Say, leader of Rock Springs’s Chinese community, requested railroad tickets to California. The company refused. Then, through Ah Say, the Chinese requested two months of back pay owed to them. Again, the company refused.
Two hundred and fifty white citizens of Evanston presented Governor Warren with a petition echoing the request – that the Chinese be paid their back wages to facilitate their departure. Warren again refused, deeming it a matter between the company and its workers, despite the volatile situation.
More federal troops finally arrived in Rock Springs and Evanston nearly a week after the initial massacre. On September 9, the company gathered approximately 600 Chinese in Evanston. Under armed guard, they were transported to the depot, loaded onto boxcars, and told they were finally headed to San Francisco and safety. Unbeknownst to them, a special car carrying Governor Warren and senior Union Pacific officials was attached to the rear of the train, along with around 250 soldiers.
The train departed Evanston that morning, but traveled slowly eastward, not westward, arriving back in Rock Springs that evening. At the depot, an angry mob of white miners awaited. The train continued a short distance, stopping just west of the smoldering ruins of Chinatown.
As the boxcar doors opened, the Chinese realized the cruel deception.
For days, fear of the hostile white miners blocking mine entrances kept the Chinese from returning to work. They renewed their pleas for passage to California, and again were denied. Their demands for back pay were also rejected. Finally, the company store cut off food and supplies to unemployed Chinese and threatened eviction from their boxcar dwellings. Around 60 refused to capitulate and left Rock Springs by any means possible.
The majority, however, were forced to submit. The company issued an ultimatum: any miner, white or Chinese, not back at work by Monday, September 21, would be fired and blacklisted from employment on all Union Pacific lines. And so, the miners returned to work under duress.
Sixteen white miners were arrested but quickly released on bail. A grand jury was convened to consider charges. Despite the public nature of the massacre, no witnesses could be found who would testify to seeing any crimes committed. No indictments were issued.
Federal troops stationed on Front Street in Rock Springs in 1885, highlighting the long-term military presence in the town following the massacre.
In total, the Rock Springs Massacre claimed the lives of 28 Chinese miners, wounded 15 more, and resulted in the complete destruction of Chinatown – all 79 homes and businesses looted and burned. Chinese diplomats in New York and San Francisco compiled a list of damages totaling nearly $150,000. Under presidential pressure, Congress eventually agreed to compensate the victims for their material losses. However, the discriminatory policies restricting Chinese immigration remained in place. Over the ensuing decades, the Chinese population gradually dwindled in Wyoming, as many had intended to return to China eventually.
In Rock Springs, Camp Pilot Butte, a federal military post, was established between downtown and the former Chinatown to prevent further violence. Federal troops remained stationed there for 13 years.
Governor Warren’s swift deployment of federal troops in the immediate aftermath of the massacre likely prevented further bloodshed. However, his refusal to intervene in the back pay dispute and his complicity in deceiving the Chinese miners onto the train back to Rock Springs served the Union Pacific’s interests. These actions ensured a continued supply of cheap Chinese labor, keeping the coal mines operational, the railroad running, and suppressing wage demands from white miners – the Union Pacific’s ultimate objective.
Resources
Primary sources
Secondary sources
- Bowers, Carol. “‘Chinese Warren’ and the Rock Springs Massacre.” The Equality State: Essays on Intolerance and Inequality in Wyoming. Mike Mackey, editor. Powell, Wyo.: Western History Publications, 1999, 37-62.
- Gardner, Albert Dudley. Two Paths One Destiny: A Comparison of Chinese Households and Communities in Alberta, British Columbia, Montana, and Wyoming, 1848-1910. Ph.D. dissertation, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, May, 2000. Excellent use of census data for a picture of 19th century Chinese communities in the West.
- Gardner, Dudley. “Wyoming History,” accessed April 26, 2011, at http://www.wwcc.cc.wy.us/wyo_hist/chinese.htm and http://www.wwcc.wy.edu/wyo_hist/ev.wyoming_and_the_chinese.htm. Background on the three Chinatowns in territorial Wyoming, and some census data. Gardner teaches history at Western Wyoming Community College in Rock Springs.
- Larson, T.A. History of Wyoming. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1965, 140-144.
- Nokes, R. Gregory. “‘A Most Daring Outrage’: Murders at Chinese Massacre Cove, 1887,” Oregon Historical Quarterly, Fall 2006, accessed April 25, 2011, via JSTOR at http://www.jstor.org/pss/20615657. An account of the May 1887 slaughter of 34 Chinese gold miners by a gang of seven horse thieves on a sand bar in the Snake River on the Idaho-Oregon border.
- Storti, Craig. Incident at Bitter Creek: The Story of the Rock Springs Chinese Massacre. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1991. Storti’s book is good on the politics leading up to and following the massacre and on life in Rock Springs’s Chinatown in the 1870s and 1880s.
- Takami, David. “Chinese Americans,” accessed April 26, 2011, at http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=2060. More on the Chinese in Seattle, Wash., and the Northwest, including the forcible expulsion of Chinese from Tacoma and Seattle in 1885 and 1886.
