5. News Article, The Chinese Murderers, 1888

This newspaper article was originally published in the Wallowa Signal and later reprinted in the Union Oregon Scout on April 20, 1888. It describes one of the most horrific mass murders in the history of the American West, the 1887 Snake River Massacre.

In October 1886 a group of Chinese miners began prospecting for gold on the Oregon side of the Snake River upstream from its confluence with the Imnaha. Far from any settlements, this remote section of Hells Canyon was visited only by the occasional party of Indians, stockmen, prospectors, and outlaws.

Sometime around May 1887 a gang of white horse thieves met near Dug Bar about a half mile below one of the Chinese mining camps. Upon discovering the miners, the seven outlaws decided on a plan to rob them of their gold. They snuck up on the mining camp, laid an ambush, and proceeded to fire at the miners, killing them one by one as they tried to run away. The outlaws, not satisfied with murder, proceeded to brutally mutilate the bodies of their victims, which they then threw into the river.