Basic Information
- Type of Place
- Independent City or Town
- Metro Area
- Politics c. 1860?
- Unions, Organized Labor?
Sundown Town Status
- Sundown Town in the Past?
- Surely
- Was there an ordinance?
- Yes, Written Evidence
- Sign?
- Don’t Know
- Year of Greatest Interest
- 1885
- Still Sundown?
- Surely Not
Census Information
| Total | White | Black | Asian | Native | Hispanic | Other | BHshld | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1860 | ||||||||
| 1870 | ||||||||
| 1880 | ||||||||
| 1890 | 4825 | 20 | 0 | |||||
| 1900 | 7327 | 7315 | 4 | 0 | 8 | |||
| 1910 | ||||||||
| 1920 | ||||||||
| 1930 | 15752 | 37 | ||||||
| 1940 | 17055 | 45 | ||||||
| 1950 | 28137 | 212 | ||||||
| 1960 | ||||||||
| 1970 | ||||||||
| 1980 | ||||||||
| 1990 | ||||||||
| 2000 | 26128 | 21544 | 427 | 928 | 1101 | 2031 | 709 | |
| 2010 | ||||||||
| 2020 |
Method of Exclusion
- Violent Expulsion
Main Ethnic Group(s)
Group(s) Excluded
- Black
- Asian
- Native American
Comments
In 1885 a Chinese man accidently shot and killed
a Eureka city councilman. Within two days the city’s
Chinatown, formerly home to 480 Chinese Americans,
ceased to exist.
Chinese Americans expelled from Eureka
unsuccessfully attempted to sue for damages relating
to property lose. In the U.S. Circuit Court case Wing
Hing v. Eureka, the court noted that the Chinese
residents owned no land and held that their other
property was worthless.
Well into the twentieth century a tendency to
glory in the anti-Chinese attitude was much in
evidence.”
Shortly after the expulsion, a citizen’s committee
drafted an unofficial law stating:
“1) That all Chinamen be expelled from the city and
that none be allowed to return.
2) That a committee be appointed to act for one year,
whose duty shall be to warn all Chinamen who may
attempt to come to this place to live, and to use all
reasonable means to prevent their remaining. If the
warning is disregarded, to call mass meetings of
citizens to whom the case will be referred for proper
action.
3) That a notice be issued to all property owners
through the daily papers, requesting them not to lease
or rent property to Chinese.”
On the first anniversary of the expulsion, Eureka
citizens met to renew their pledges to keep Chinese
people out of the city. They also offered help to other
towns attempting to expel Chinese people.
The anti-Chinese ordinance was repealed in
1959, and a few Chinese Americans now live in the
city.