July 8, 1890 – Fort Logan, Colorado: The Lynching of Ah Sam, a Camp Cook Accused of Theft

[AI-generated placeholder. Deeper narrative coming soon.] In July 1890, at Fort Logan (an Army post near Denver, Colorado), a Chinese cook named Ah Sam was lynched by a group of eight white men after being accused of stealing a diamond ring. The vigilantes – led by a local saloon-keeper – took Ah Sam and two other Chinese men off the base and “strung [them] up to a limb of a tree three times” in an effort to force a confession (Beaver Valley Tribune, July 24, 1890). On the third hanging, Ah Sam lost consciousness and was left for dead, while the other two victims were badly injured. Army officers intervened and even secured the arrest of the mob leader (an uncommon attempt at holding lynchers accountable), but in the end the punishment for Ah Sam’s killers was minimal.