San Francisco
The Oriental Warehouse
The next day police heard rumors that the leaders of the mobs from yesterday would try to block the docking of a steamer carrying more Chinese to the city. The police took a full force to port area and formed a line around the Oriental Warehouse located there. The Warehouse was the holding facility for the tons of rice, tea and other Chinese goods that arrived by boat.
Almost immediately the police were confronted by dozens of troublemakers who taunted and threw rocks at them. At 7 p.m. some piles of lumber about a block away from the warehouse were set on fire in an attempt to draw the police away from the building. By the time firefighters arrived the anti-Chinese mob had swelled 1,500, and both the police and firefighters face a steady barrage of rocks and bottles from a nearby hill. When a rioter rushed in and tried to cut a fire hose, he was shot dead by the police.
The police then charged the hill where most of the mob had gathered. When shots were fired at the officers in the lead they returned the fire, killing four and wounding eighteen in the crowd. The bloodshed stopped the crowd in its tracks, and it quickly dispersed.
No ship carrying Chinese passengers arrived that evening.
Sources: Garner, McDannold, Pfaelzer, Sandmeyer, Shumsky
About this site: The brick façade of the original Oriental Warehouse still exists today in a upscale neighborhood known as South Beach. A new residential condo building exists inside the walls of the old warehouse.