page_title: Rock Springs massacre
section_title: Immediate aftermath
hierarchical_section_title: Rock Springs massacre / Outcome / Immediate aftermath
caption_attribution_description: English: Federal Troops on South Front Street, Rock Springs, 1885. National Archives Photo.
context_page_description: The Rock Springs massacre, also known as the Rock Springs Riot, occurred on September 2, 1885, in the present-day United States city of Rock Springs in Sweetwater County, Wyoming. The riot, and resulting massacre of immigrant Chinese miners by white immigrant miners, was the result of racial prejudice toward the Chinese miners, who were perceived to be taking jobs from the white miners. The Union Pacific Coal Department found it economically beneficial to give preference in hiring to Chinese miners, who were willing to work for lower wages than their white counterparts, angering the white miners. When the rioting ended, at least 28 Chinese miners were dead and 15 were injured. Rioters burned 78 Chinese homes, resulting in approximately US$150,000 in property damage.
  Tension between whites and Chinese immigrants in the late 19th century American West was particularly high, especially in the decade preceding the violence. The massacre in Rock Springs was one among several instances of violence culminating from years of anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States.
context_section_description: In the days following the riot, surviving Chinese immigrants in Rock Springs fled and were picked up by Union Pacific trains. By September 5, almost all survivors were in Evanston, Wyoming, 100 miles (160 km) west of Rock Springs. Once there, they were subjected to threats of murder and other crimes; Evanston was another area in Wyoming where anti-Chinese sentiment was high.
  Rumors of the return of the Chinese to Rock Springs circulated immediately after the riots. On September 3, the Rock Springs Independent published an editorial which confirmed the rumors of "the return", as a few Chinese began to trickle back into town to search for valuables. The Independent said of the return of Chinese laborers to Rock Springs, "It means that Rock Springs is killed, as far as white men are concerned, if such program is carried out." The massacre was defended in the local newspaper, and, to an extent, in other western newspapers. In general, however, Wyoming newspapers disapproved of the acts of the massacre while supporting the cause of white miners.
  Wyoming's territorial Governor Francis E. Warren visited Rock Springs on September 3, 1885, the day after the riot, to make a personal assessment. After his trip to Rock Springs, Warren traveled to Evanston, where he sent telegrams to U.S. President Grover Cleveland appealing for federal troops. Back in Rock Springs, the riot had calmed, but the situation was still unstable. Two companies of the United States Army's 7th Infantry arrived on September 5, 1885. One company, under the command of a Lieutenant Colonel Anderson, was stationed in Evanston, Wyoming; the other, under a Colonel Chipman, was stationed in Rock Springs. At Camp Murray, Utah Territory, Colonel Alexander McDowell McCook was ordered to augment the garrison sent to Wyoming with six more companies.
  On September 9, 1885, one week after the massacre, six companies of soldiers arrived in Wyoming. Four of the six companies then escorted the Chinese back to Rock Springs. Once back in Rock Springs, the Chinese laborers found scorched tracts of land where their homes once stood. The mining company had buried only a few dead; others remained lying in the open, mangled, decomposing, and partially eaten by dogs, hogs, or other animals.
  The situation in Rock Springs was stabilized as early as September 15, when Warren first requested the removal of federal troops, but the mines at Rock Springs remained closed for a time. On September 30, 1885, white miners, mostly Finnish immigrants who were members of the Knights of Labor, walked out of mines in Carbon County, Wyoming, in protest of the company's continued use of Chinese miners. In Rock Springs, the white miners were not back at work in late September, because the company still used Chinese labor. Rock Springs steadily became quieter, and, on October 5, 1885, emergency troops, except for two companies, were removed. However, the temporary posts of Camp Medicine Butte, established in Evanston, and of Camp Pilot Butte, in Rock Springs, remained long after the riot. Camp Pilot Butte closed in 1899 after the onset of the Spanish–American War.
  The labor strike was unsuccessful, and the miners went back to work within a couple of months. The national Knights of Labor organization refused to support the Carbon strike and the hold out by white miners in Rock Springs following the Rock Springs Riot. The organization avoided supporting the miners along the Union Pacific Railroad, because it did not want to be seen as condoning the violence at Rock Springs. When the Union Pacific Coal Department reopened the mines, it fired 45 white miners connected to the violence.
caption: Federal soldiers on South Front Street in Rock Springs, 1885. Troops were first deployed in Rock Springs to quell the riot on September 5.
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