Massacre in Rock Springs

September 2, 2008 7:52 AM

September 2, 1885, Rock Springs, Wyoming (horrible music warning). A mining town on the frontier, the Rock Springs of 1885 was consumed with race and labor tensions, and witnessed an unparalleled event during the history of Chinese-Americans in the U.S. west. The little known Rock Springs Massacre, was perpetuated by white miners on Chinese miners and left at least 28 of the latter dead and dismembered.

The slaughter was fueled mostly by racial prejudice but an ongoing labor dispute involving Union Pacific's coal company also played a significant role. The Chinese miners that survived described a harrowing scene:

"Some of the Chinese were killed at the bank of Bitter Creek, some near the railroad bridge, and some in “Chinatown.” After having been killed, the dead bodies of some were carried to the burning buildings and thrown into the flames. Some of the Chinese who had hid themselves in the houses were killed and their bodies burned; some, who on account of sickness could not run, were burned alive in the houses. One Chinese was killed in “Whitemen’s Town” in a laundry house, and his house demolished. The whole number of Chinese killed was twenty-eight and those wounded fifteen."

The massacre was big news, even then, coverage appeared in the New York Times a few days later. Notably, the local paper, the Rock Springs Independent, essentially endorsed the outcome of the murders in Rock Springs. The literature on the massacre is pretty sparse, even behind database walls like JSTOR. There have been some works done on it though, Craig Storti's 1990 book comes to mind. The massacre receives passing mention here, here, and here, among other places. There are a few other works on the subject, including older ones. Wikipedia has some good info too.

posted by IvoShandor (11 comments total)

Cartoonist James Sturm's short story Hundreds of Feet Below Daylight was also inspired by the Rock Springs Massacre.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:11 AM on September 2, 2008 [4 favorites has favorites]

1913 Massacre (mp3) by Woody Guthrie about Calumet Michigan and the Ludlow Massacre, Ludlow, Colorado in 1914.
posted by acro at 9:02 AM on September 2, 2008

Wow. What a well researched post.

I was a little shocked to see the term 'Celestials' used in the New York times. I'd never heard it used outside of airings of Deadwood, but there it is...in the NYT....more than once. It's amazing how much journalistic standards and language taboos have changed.

A few weeks ago there was a MeFi post on the Gulf Stream carrying young tropical fish as far north as Long Island. It too linked to a vintage NYT article from 1910 that started with the following sentence:

Is the Gulf Stream, the most important and best known current in the Atlantic Ocean, getting gay with the northern coast of New Jersey and Long Island?

...Which has nothing to do with anything, except for the sheer improbability of that sentence today.
posted by Alison at 9:05 AM on September 2, 2008

CELESTIALS An expression used to describe Chinese miners. The term was in wide-spread use during the California gold rush, and was brought into British Columbia when the Forty-Niners came north. The word originated from the Celestial Empire of China.

From your shock, it sounds like this must have been (or be?) offensive at one time?
posted by DU at 10:21 AM on September 2, 2008

Jean Pfaelzer wrote a lavishly researched book, Driven Out, about the pogroms of Chinese Americans in the second half of the nineteenth century last year in California. The Rock Springs Massacre is mentioned in the section 'A Litany of Hate'.

A video on fora.tv of the author discussing the book.
posted by godisdad at 10:42 AM on September 2, 2008

Alvy, thanks so much for the mention of Sturm's story. It's so good, and I haven't thought about it for a long time. Must go re-read...
posted by sadiehawkinstein at 11:01 AM on September 2, 2008

This is an insanely interesting story. I've read a bit about racism issues in the good ol' west in areas I'd traveled through but I hadn't come across anything on this event. And the comments are adding in so much more awesome stuff. I regret that I have nothing to add, really, but this is the sort of thing that makes me so happy MeFi exists. Thanks guys!
posted by six-or-six-thirty at 11:28 AM on September 2, 2008

This sounded familiar to me, so I looked where Rock Springs is at on the map. Sure enough, I drove through there one year. I remember that the town has several plaques marking the events.
posted by beelzbubba at 12:08 PM on September 2, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

I've been to Rock Springs. As I remember the local Pizza Hut was used for weddings. A worthy punishment
posted by A189Nut at 2:01 PM on September 2, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

I've been in that Pizza Hut (there is no way there's more than one)
Ironically it was the weekend of my half sister's wedding, which was NOT at the Pizza Hut.

Truly the middle of nowhere.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 2:11 PM on September 2, 2008

i learned about this when i was researching on lynchings. it was amazing to me to discover that Chinatowns in America were basically the refuge of the hunted. everybody always romanticizes Chinatowns, like "look how those people stick together"--without knowing that it was about *safety*.
posted by RedEmma at 11:45 AM on September 3, 2008