Silver City, New Mexico Territory, circa 1876
When Gideon and Julia arrived, there were about 1,500 people living in the valley, two-thirds of whom were Mexicans who worked in the mines, drove wagons to and from the mills, and worked as extremely low-paid help. The area had been a part of Old Mexico and still had a strong Spanish influence. Not surprisingly, a “little Mexico” of adobe huts and cantinas sprang up on Chihuahua Hill. Many of theMexican settlers came north from Chihuahua, a sovereign state on the southern side of the United States border. They played their own music, cooked Mexican dishes and consumed vast sums of homemade tequila. On Saturday nights the men gathered at the end of the road to bet on cock fights with the mauled losers tossed into a roaring fire pit.
Adding to the mix were Chinese opium dens, a large Mexican population, and the Negro soldiers stationed at Fort Bayard. After the Civil War, there were several Negro units, and some were re-assigned to the southwest. The Americans were the newcomers.
Silver City, New Mexico, pictures courtesy of the Silver City Museum.
Fifteen saloons, dance halls and gambling halls were packed around the clock with drunk and disorderly patrons. McGary & Dyer on Main Street added a ten-pin alley to their saloon with pot games and side-bets adding to the fun. Their dance hall was crowded seven-nights a week, and the bar receipts averaged around $100 ($3,200 today) a night. It was a busy frontier town full of trouble with scruffyminers who lacked a moral compass. Historian and author Michael Wallis “noticed that the homicide rate in the New Mexico Territory was 47 times higher than the national average, with gunshot wounds the leading cause of death. Grant County was responsible for 15% of all murders in the nation.” It was a rough town.
During a mid-day scuffle behind McGary’s Saloon a drunk refused to give the sheriff his gun, which accidently discharged and struck a bystander. Down the street Billy Wilson pulled a knife and slashed saloon owner Joe Dyer’s face. Innkeeper Peter Ott dodged a bullet during a robbery attempt at the Keystone Hotel and shot his attacker dead. Merchant David Abraham shot and killed a burglar in his
home; when a drunk walked into his store with a gun drawn he emptied both barrels into his gut. The driver of several wagons loaded with provisions for John Morrell’s store was attacked just outside of town, his lifeless body unceremoniously dumped along the trail. His horses were killed, and the contents of the wagons were scattered along the trail in an ugly display of the Apache’s hatred for the white man.
After the transcontinental railroad was completed, there were 2.5 million Chinese laborers looking for work, and they were excellent workers with many of them migrating to the southwest to work in the mines. The town’s first “Chinaman” came in 1874, when 24-year-old Charlie Sun moved from Albuquerque where he ran a hand laundry. When he opened his own laundry, he ran into toughcompetition. Nellie Johnson ran a laundry, and wasn’t pleased to see him taking so much of her business. “Boys, that Chinaman can’t do as well for you as I can. Bring your washing to Texas Street.”
According to Frederick Nolan “the residents of Silver City looked on their presence and the opium dens in ‘Hop Town’ with great displeasure, believing that they created problems for the town. The Chinese who patronized these opium dens would get incredibly high, and pass out or fall asleep.” It didn’t take long for the Village Arabs to realize nobody cared about the Chinese, so rocking a Chinaman became a popular pastime.
“Manuel Taylor was half Mexican and half Angelo and owned a mining claim in the Chloride Flats mining district. One day he “got a rock and peeked around and after a while he threw it. And when we looked around to see what he’d done with that rock the Chinaman was floppin’ around like a chicken with his head cut off. We knew damn well the Chinaman was killed all right. Well, there was never a thing said about it at all.”
Adding to the racial tensions was the Negro Calvary that had been stationed at nearby Fort Bayard during the Civil War. They fought valiantly, and were a rugged lot who were sent to protect the frontier. Charlie Sun did not endear himself to the townspeople when his Mexican wife became pregnant, and gave birth to a child. He was celebrating at the saloon “and when the baby was born it was a nigger...he had an old sow out in the backyard and he took that baby and threw it in there and the sow killed it. No, there wasn’t anything done about it,” recalled Sheriff Whitehill’s son, Wayne.