Terrified Chinese Immigrants Flee Tacoma Station
Fearful of mob violence in an anti-Chinese city, seven men abandon their luggage and run for their lives to escape a perceived threat.
Tacoma, Aug. 27.—During the evening, seven Chinamen who were being transferred from the Portland train to the Kingston at the wharf became panic-stricken. They believed the crowd had gathered to mob and kill them. One of them in a gurney cut the straps on the doors and broke out, leaving their baggage. They ran toward the Seventeenth street depot of the Northern Pacific. Four others in another gurney smashed open the doors and followed. An interpreter was required to allay their fears. They knew that Tacoma was anti-Chinese.
“They believed the crowd had gathered to mob and kill them... They knew that Tacoma was anti-Chinese.”
This event captures the raw, palpable terror experienced by the Chinese community during the late 1880s, when 'the Tacoma Method'—the forced expulsion of the entire Chinese population—was still fresh in the collective memory. It serves as a stark reminder of the organized, state-sanctioned racial violence that shaped the demographic and social landscape of the Pacific Northwest.
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