In October 1886, two groups of Chinese gold miners led by Chea Po and Lee She departed Lewiston and traveled upriver along the Snake River into Oregon's Hells Canyon to search for gold. Chea Po's group settled on the Oregon side of the Snake near Robinson Gulch and a cove where Deep Creek empties into the Snake, choosing a location just upstream of Dug Bar, a ford historically used by horse and cattle thieves to cross the river. Lee She's group continued further upriver to Salt Creek. The miners' presence in this remote region and their gold-mining activities set the stage for a violent confrontation.
In May 1887, the two groups of Chinese miners were ambushed and murdered. The massacre resulted in the deaths of up to thirty-four Chinese gold miners, who were not only killed but also robbed during the attack. The incident became known as the Hells Canyon massacre, also referred to as the Snake River massacre.
The historical significance of this event extended well beyond 1887. In 2005, more than a century later, the area where the massacre occurred was formally renamed Chinese Massacre Cove in recognition of this tragedy. The naming of the location serves as a permanent marker of this violent episode in Oregon's history and acknowledges the lives lost in this remote canyon setting along the Snake River in Wallowa County.
The American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) grew from colonial resistance to British taxation without parliamentary representation — a dispute that radicalized through the Stamp Act (1765), the Townshend Acts (1767), and the Boston Massacre (1770). Fighting began at Lexington and Concord in April 1775; the Continental Congress declared independence on July 4, 1776. The Continental Army under George Washington faced severe shortages of supplies and troops, enduring the brutal winter at Valley Forge (1777–1778) before French alliance and French financing turned the military balance. Major engagements included Bunker Hill (1775), Trenton (1776), Saratoga (1777) — which secured French intervention — and Yorktown (1781), where British General Cornwallis surrendered to Washington. An estimated 25,000 American soldiers died in service, from combat, disease, and captivity. The Treaty of Paris (1783) recognized American independence and ceded British territory east of the Mississippi, though it left unresolved questions about Indigenous land rights and the status of Loyalists.
Up to 34 Chinese gold miners killed
Content adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Aubrey generates in-depth historical research for any location in the US, drawing on NRHP records, battlefield archives, census history and geological data to tell the full story of a place.