Two Drunken Miners Lynched a Chinese Man over an “Imaginary Crime”

In early July 1873, two drunken miners near Silver Creek accused a Chinese man of stealing a ring they had lost and hanged him. The Ogden Junction said they carried out “summary vengeance” for an “imaginary crime,” while a later recollection in The Anaconda Standard remembered the killing as “A Chinaman Hung for Fun.” One of the attackers was later arrested, and retrospective accounts say Tim Collins eventually received a life sentence.