Oregon Cove Named in Memory of 1887 Massacre
The site along the Snake River bore witness to a gruesome murder of Chinese gold miners. Now its name is the only indicator of that history.
To get to the newly named Chinese Massacre Cove, you can take a boat along the Snake River to Hells Canyon.
There along the shore at the mouth of Deep Creek in 1887 Oregon, the water ran red with the blood of more than 30 Chinese gold miners killed and mutilated by horse thieves. To memorialize the tragic event, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names and the Oregon Geographical Names Board unanimously voted Oct. 12 to name the site after the little-known massacre.
Newly printed maps will now identify the formerly unnamed site.
The ominous connotations weren’t lost on board officials and local residents, but many say its name is an important nod to local history.
“I believe there needs to be recognition of this heinous crime, one of the worst in the history of the American west, and probably the worst single crime committed by whites against the Chinese who emigrated to the American west in the latter half of the 19th century,” said R. Gregory Nokes, an Oregon-based retired journalist and author of “Hells Canyon Massacre.”
But the crime was never fully investigated, said Nokes. The tragedy was “lost in the fog of history” and buried beneath the area’s sparse hackberry trees until records were uncovered in an old Wallowa County safe in 1995.
The killing began May 27, 1887, according to one account, when a group of armed men on the cliffs fired down on a group of Chinese miners camped along the river. The killing continued until the next day when the killers left with their pockets lined with stolen gold. Body parts were reported to be seen weeks later floating on the Snake River and along the river’s sloping cliffs.
Six Wallowa County men were charged with murder, but only three were tried and acquitted. Three others fled on horseback and were never captured. Two years later, Congress paid $276,619.75 to the Chinese government as “full indemnity’’ for the crime, according to the Associated Press.
Racially charged crimes against Chinese workers were common during the time when the American West was being forged, added Nokes who along with Jeff Ford, former chairman of the Idaho Geographic Names Advisory Council, and Dr. Priscilla Wegars, advocated to memorialize the site.
“Using ‘Chinese Massacre Cove’ for the name of this location enables people in perpetuity to remember the ill-treatment once accorded to the Chinese in the West, both in Oregon and in many other places,” said Wegars, who is the volunteer coordinator of the University of Idaho’s Asian American Comparative Collection.
The Oregon Geographical Name Board (OGNB) approved the name in June despite some disapproval voiced from members of the Wallowa County Board of Commissioners, who were not in favor of giving that name to the site because they felt there would be too much emphasis on one negative event.
“Of course we do not want to be known as the site of this regrettable event,” said Commissioner Ben Boswell. “And yet we do not intend to whitewash it. We believe that there was more to the Chinese experience than this negative incident. Consequently we favor naming the site Chinese Memorial Site. This would give the opportunity to interpret all of the Chinese experience in the area, not just the negative one.”
Some residents, who were believed to be descendents of the men charged with the crime, also expressed disapproval of the name, but overall local opposition was minimal, said Champ Vaughn, OGBN president.
“A massacre is a massacre,” said Nokes. “To call it anything else is dishonest. Some people in Wallowa County may not want to acknowledge that such a heinous crime occurred in their county, so they want to avoid calling it what it was. If the name is morbid, it’s not nearly so as the crime itself.”
Even with the name approved and entered into the nation’s official automated database, it is up to the discretion of local jurisdiction and the private sector to include or exclude the name on documents and maps, said Roger L. Payne, executive secretary of the U.S. Board on Geographic Names. But Payne added most follow the federal board guidelines.
The next step is to have Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton sign off on the name, a step that Vaughn calls very automatic. Some feel the name is the first step in the right direction of making right a past wrong.
“It was a rare opportunity to imprint history in a true and respectful way,” said Micki Kawakami, a member of the JACL Pocatello-Blackfoot and Sawtooth chapters. “I’m pleased that the name of ‘Chinese Massacre Cove’ will reflect the history of the place accurately.”
Championing historically accurate names is a cause that Kawakami and other members of the Committee to Change “Jap” Road (CCJR) know well. The committee, which successfully campaigned last year to change racist road names in Texas, works to erase racist names and celebrate American history.
Kawakami hopes to visit Chinese Massacre Cove one day and listen to the whispers in the Snake River.
“[I] hope that field trips of Oregon school children will lead them to Chinese Massacre Cove and to learn an important facet of their state’s history,” she said.
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