The John Crow Project

Anaconda, Montana • Mass lynching

In the early hours of April 14, 1885, an explosion destroyed a Chinese laundry in Anaconda, Montana, killing Chinese occupants and injuring others. A Montana Record-Herald headline read: “A Chinese Laundry in Anaconda Blown up and Three Chinamen Killed” (April 17, 1885). The same account noted that eight Chinese men were in the building at the time of the explosion. The Montana Record Herald (Helena) described the scene in devastating detail: “Your correspondent was among the first upon the ground. A heart-sickening scene presented itself. Two dead Chinamen blown out of shape and beyond recognition, another in agonies of death, a fourth mortally wounded, and four others more or less injured were lying among the logs and debris of a completely demolished building” (April 14, 1885). Both stories were certain that the explosions were intentionally set. Both accounts noted that the perpetrators had not been identified. This project has not been able to discover their fate. The Anaconda lynching of four Chinese men is classified here as a lynching even though the instrument of death was gunpowder rather than a rope. The pretext for the lynching is hard to determine since the deed was done in the early morning hours under the cover of darkness. Given the extent of the destruction, it is likely that the perpetrators wanted to drive out the Chinese population or, perhaps, eliminate a business competitor. We see that anti-Chinese terror was not confined to a single technique. It could be individualized (a single hanging), collective (a riot), or structural (the destruction of living and working space) while still producing fatal outcomes and durable fear.