The Mob That Tore Through Chinatown
Testimony from an acting police chief details the systematic expulsion of Chinese residents from Seattle during the violent anti-Chinese riots of February 1886.
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.
At the United States Commissioner’s office, W. C. Murphy, acting chief of police on February 7, 1886, testified regarding the events in Seattle’s Chinatown. Murphy stated he was approached at the Wisconsin House and informed that a 'committee of fifteen citizens' had been appointed to inspect Chinese residences for alleged violations of the cubic air ordinance. Murphy joined the committee, which included Louis K. Kidd, M. McMillan, F. Wickstrom, and G. L. Manning. 'We entered the first China house we came to,' Murphy testified. 'Some one rapped on the door, a Chinaman opened it and six or eight went in.' The committee proceeded to mark buildings, count residents, and demand that they 'pack up.' As the day progressed, the initial committee grew into a mob of hundreds of white men. Murphy witnessed express wagons and carts arriving to carry away Chinese property while white men assisted in loading goods. When he told them to stop, they ignored him. Later, Mrs. H. L. Yesler, wife of the mayor, testified that a mob of men appeared at her home demanding she hand over her Chinese cook. When she refused, citing the law, they threatened to 'blow up' her house. Sheriff McGraw also testified, describing his failed attempts to disperse the crowds on Third and Main Streets and his struggle to protect the Chinese residents as they were forcibly herded toward the wharf and eventually the steamship for expulsion from the city.
“The mob started gathering... I saw two or three hundred white men there. The packing up commenced was not over three quarters of an hour.”
This testimony documents the dark reality of Seattle's 1886 anti-Chinese riots, a period of exclusionary violence that remains a foundational trauma for the city’s Asian American community. Today, the geography of this terror—the blocks around Third, Main, and Commercial Streets—forms the core of the International District, serving as a reminder of the long struggle against systemic displacement and xenophobia.
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