Terrorized by Construction Crews
A settler near the Cedar River reports harassment and danger from railroad workers blasting through the woods.
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.
We are having lively times in these heretofore dismal woods. Numbers of tie camps, with hosts of workmen, have spotted the surrounding hills with fresh hewn ties. Right opposite my house, just across the Cedar river, the Chinese are as numerous as blow flies. They don't interfere with my vegetables, but for five successive weeks they have kept me in almost constant danger of life and limb, throwing their missiles all about me, breaking things, frightening the stock, and causing me to run out of the house like a rat from a burning barn to take refuge behind some large tree from the blasting. These are some of the miseries attendant upon the construction of a railroad near one's place, but the General Superintendent assures me he will make good all the damage or discomfort they cause.
“They have kept me in almost constant danger of life and limb, throwing their missiles all about me.”
This letter highlights the human cost of rapid industrialization. The casual racism directed at the Chinese railroad laborers in the report underscores the era's xenophobia, which ultimately fueled the anti-Chinese expulsion movements occurring in Washington at the time.
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