What was going on in 1885

Table of Contents Expand. Robert McNamara. History Expert. Robert J. McNamara is a history expert and former magazine journalist.

He was Amazon. Updated August 16, Cite this Article Format. McNamara, Robert. Minnesota Guided Research. Minnesota Record Finder. Research Tips and Strategies. Step-by-Step Research. Minnesota, United States Genealogy. Minnesota Census. Minnesota Censuses Existing and Lost.

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The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. When it came time to build the transcontinental railroad east from Sacramento, over the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Chinese workers, though physically small, proved to be reliable, strong and very tough.

They had to be. Blasting tunnels through hard rock, cutting ledges for the railroad along cliffs and mountainsides was dangerous, difficult work.

Out of the 12, Chinese who built the Central Pacific, about 1, died on the job. In , the Central Pacific met the Union Pacific in Utah, and the nation had a transcontinental railroad.

Thousands of jobs disappeared. Still, the Chinese stayed. Because their families were not with them, the men did not mind living eight or nine to a room to save on rent. This kept their expenses very low. They could afford to accept jobs at a lower rate of pay. They began, in the eyes of white workers, taking jobs away from the white men. In October , when a fight broke out in Los Angeles between rival gangs of Chinese criminals, whites poured into the neighborhood and murdered 23 Chinese.

No one was charged with the crimes. The Chinese still kept coming to the United States. There was more violence—in Arizona and Nevada as well as California. In , Congress finally limited the number of Chinese immigrants. But the new law was full of loopholes, and the immigration question was as open-ended and confusing as ever. Coal was the main reason the railroad followed the route it did across southern Wyoming. There were strikes about wage cuts, and more strikes about having to shop at the company stores.

After one such strike in , the company fired the strikers and brought in Scandinavian miners ready to work for less and follow the rules. In , after another strike, the company brought in additional Chinese miners ready to do the same. It worked. Both times, federal troops came in, and the strikers lost the struggle. After the strike, the Rock Springs mines started up again with about Chinese miners and only 50 whites.

By , there were nearly Chinese and white miners working the Rock Springs mines. The Chinese lived in what the whites called Chinatown, to the northeast, on the other side of a bend in the railroad tracks and across Bitter Creek. There the miners lived in small wooden houses the company had built for them. Other Chinese who ran businesses—herb stores, laundries, noodle shops, social clubs—lived in shacks they built themselves. Although they worked side by side every day, whites and Chinese spoke separate languages and lived separate lives.

They knew very little about each other. This made it possible for each race to think of the other, somehow, as not entirely human. This was fine with the company, but white miners resented it. They joined a new union, the Knights of Labor, growing in numbers across the nation at that time. After yet another strike in , mine managers in Rock Springs were told to hire only Chinese. In the summer of , there were scattered threats against and beatings of Chinese men in Cheyenne , Laramie and Rawlins.

Threatening posters turned up in the railroad towns warning the Chinese to leave Wyoming Territory or else. Company officials ignored these signs as well as direct warnings from the union. On the morning of Sept. Whites fatally wounded a Chinese miner with blows of a pick to the skull.

A second Chinese was badly beaten. Finally a foreman arrived and ended the violence. But instead of going back to work, the white miners went home and fetched guns, hatchets, knives and clubs. They gathered on the railroad tracks near the No. Some made an effort to calm things down, but most moved to the Knights of Labor hall, had a meeting and then went to the saloons, where miners from other mines began showing up as well. Sensing the increasing tension, the saloon owners closed their doors.

In Chinatown, it was a Chinese holiday. Many of the miners stayed home from work and were unaware of what was developing. Shortly after noon, between and armed white men, mostly miners and railroad workers, convened again at the railroad tracks near the No. Many women and even children joined them. About two in the afternoon, the mob divided.