Chinese Hanging

The sign names none of the dead and never says how the case was made. One was Lee Kee Nam, who ran the store that competed with D. M. Fraser's; the other four go unnamed. A vigilance committee, many of them from Lewiston, choked Lee with a noose until he passed out and frightened confessions from him, his partner and three others. When China's minister asked for an inquiry, Governor Edward Stevenson heard people hostile to the Chinese, called the five guilty, and wrote that he hoped Congress would rid Idaho of them. No one was ever charged.

What the plaque says

Chinese Hanging Charged with hacking a prominent local merchant to pieces, five Chinese were hanged here by vigilantes Sept. 18, 1885. They were just setting out on a long, hard 240 mile trip from Pierce to face trial at the county seat in Murray when the vigilantes struck. A large group of armed, masked men forced the deputy sheriff and his posse to give up the Chinese prisoners and to return to Pierce. A marked trail leads 365 feet from here to the site where this incident occurred. 307 Text prepared by the Idaho Historical Society Marker made & installed by Idaho Transportation Department

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Weippe Prairie — 9.8 mi
  Where the Nimiipuu decided what to do with Clark's starving men, and fed them camas until they were sick.
• Heart of the Monster — 20 mi
  Where the Nimiipuu say their story begins: Coyote, a monster, and the heart he tore loose, still on the Clearwater's bank.

More markers nearby

• Oro Fino City — 1.0 mi
• Pierce Courthouse — 1.7 mi
• Canal Gulch — 1.7 mi
• Lewis and Clark — 9.2 mi