The Guilland House Advertises 'No Chinamen'
A local hotel uses xenophobic hiring practices as a primary marketing hook to attract guests.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The now popular Guilland House is being remodeled and being made more attractive for its guests. Besides the fact that Mr. Guilland sets an excellent table, there is another reason for the popularity of this hotel—that is, Chinamen are scarce, and accommodating girls have been employed as waiters, and excellent women cooks may be found in the kitchen instead of Chinese.
“there is another reason for the popularity of this hotel—that is, Chinamen are scarce”
This notice serves as a grim artifact of the 1885-86 expulsion era in the Pacific Northwest, where business owners frequently weaponized anti-Chinese sentiment as a marketing tactic. It underscores how racism was deeply embedded in the social and commercial fabric of frontier Yakima.
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