Lesser felonies in Oregon have played out longer and in far greater detail. Others have sent more offenders to prison, not a few to face the executioner.



But what happened May 25, 1887, and the following day in eastern Oregon's Hells Canyon, then known as the Snake River Canyon, is without equal in Northwest criminal history. When the shooting was done, as many as 34 innocent men lay dead.



By 1887, the thousands of Chinese brought to the United States as cheap labor to build railroads had largely been rendered superfluous.





"When the railroad was complete, they would have been laid off ... and left adrift to survive as they might in an alien land," R. Gregory Nokes, a retired reporter and editor for The Oregonian, says in his book, "Massacred for Gold: The Chinese in Hells Canyon." "They may have turned to mining as one of the few work opportunities available to them."

That May morning, one such crew was working on a gravel bar at the mouth of Deep Creek on the Oregon side of Hells Canyon, sifting through rocks for flecks of gold left behind in the get-rich-quick crowd's eagerness for easy pickings.

Their presence had drawn the attention of a gang of young Wallowa County miscreants, whose previous activities leaned heavily toward horse thievery and recreational mayhem.

All told, seven thugs, one just 15 years old, were involved in the massacre. Just how many did the actual shooting has never been established. Nor has the number of victims at Deep Creek the first morning, and downstream at China Bar the next day. General agreement puts it well past 30.

Also unknown is how much gold the gang might have plundered. Rumors put the figure from $3,000 to more than $50,000.

The massacre wasn't discovered until more than a month later when bodies began floating ashore as much as 65 miles down the Snake River, near Lewiston, Idaho.

There ensued investigations of sorts. Six gang members were indicted for murder; a seventh turned state's witness. Three fled to parts unknown and avoided trial. Three others went on trial in August 1888 and were declared innocent.

The trial attracted little attention from the press, and Wallowa County folks, some friends and relatives of the offenders, swept the sordid saga under the carpet for more than a century. It wasn't really a cover-up. It was more like "The code of Wallowa County: 'You don't ask and you don't tell,'" County Judge Ben Boswell told Nokes.

In 1995, County Clerk Charlotte McIver opened an old safe in the Wallowa County Courthouse in Enterprise and found a long-secreted cache of documents relating to the massacre.

The Wallowa County Chieftain newspaper picked up on the story. When its accounts reached him, Nokes said, "I kind of turned to the editor at the time and said, 'I think this is an interesting story.'"

His interest turned to fascination and years of research. After retiring in 2003, he gave the massacre his full attention. It took him to the sweltering depths of Hells Canyon, the vast documents of the State Archives in Salem and the dank recesses of the Enterprise courthouse. In a dark corner of the basement he found the original trial record.

He interviewed everyone he could find with any knowledge of the massacre. Some he called the "secret keepers" had kept silent for years.

His article, "A Most Daring Outrage: Murders at Chinese Massacre Cove, 1887," appeared in the fall 2006 issue of the Oregon Historical Quarterly. "Massacred for Gold" followed in October 2009.

Nokes credits his work with several positive developments. In 2005 the Oregon Geographic Names Board and U.S. Board on Geographic Names officially designated the Deep Creek site as Chinese Massacre Cove.

"It's the first recognition by any branch of government that a massacre occurred at that site," he said.

Most folks in Wallowa County "are now happy that the story's been told," he said. Members of Chinese communities up and down the West Coast were grateful.

The first 3,000-copy printing of "Massacred" has sold out, but Oregon State University Press has more on the way. Check it out at www.massacredforgold.com.

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, Special to The Oregonian