Saturday, October 31, 2026

Denver’s first race riot begins in a saloon on Wazee and ends with Chinatown in ruins

1880 · Denver (Hop Alley / Chinatown, Wazee Street)

On Halloween 1880 a fight at John Asmussen’s saloon on 16th and Wazee turns into a mob of thousands that destroys Denver’s Chinatown, beats one man to death, and leaves the survivors with nothing but the memory.

It started the way a lot of Denver nights still start: two men playing pool, some other men drinking, and the wrong word at the wrong table. On the afternoon of October 31, 1880, at John Asmussen’s saloon on the 1600 block of Wazee—in the stretch of lower downtown then called Hop Alley—drunk white patrons began harassing two Chinese men. The owner tried to get the Chinese customers out the back door. They did not make it far.

By evening a crowd of two or three thousand had gathered, chanting variations on “Stamp out the yellow plague” and “The Chinese must go.” They ransacked homes, smashed businesses, and threw belongings into the street. Look Young, a laundry worker who had only been in Denver six months, was dragged out, beaten, and left hanging from a lamppost. He died of his injuries. Dozens more were hurt. Estimates of the damage ran from $30,000 to more than $50,000. Almost none of it was ever paid.

The neighborhood had grown from a handful of Chinese residents in 1870 to about 238 by 1880, most of them men running laundries. Many were former railroad workers. Anti-Chinese politics was already loud that election season; the Rocky Mountain News had been stirring it. The Chinese Exclusion Act would pass Congress two years later. A few white residents sheltered people—saloonkeeper James Veatch, gambler Jim Moon, and madam Lizzie Preston, whose employees reportedly held the line with champagne bottles and high heels. The rest of the city mostly watched or joined in.

A plaque near Coors Field still marks the corner. In 2022 the city formally apologized. The buildings are gone. The street is still there. Halloween has always been a night for costumes; this one was a night when the city took its mask off.

The survivors rebuilt for a while. Federal law eventually finished what the mob started.

Sources: Colorado Public Radio · Denver Public Library Special Collections · Wikipedia: Chinatown, Denver · History Colorado / Colorado Encyclopedia

Michael J. Anderson is born in Denver on Halloween and later becomes the Man from Another Place

1953 · Denver

Born at 10:30 p.m. on Halloween in Denver, the actor with osteogenesis imperfecta grows up to play the backward-speaking dream figure in Twin Peaks and Samson in Carnivàle.

Michael John Anderson took his first breath in Denver on Halloween night, 1953. He has osteogenesis imperfecta, which left him at 3 feet 7 inches and put him in a wheelchair as a child. After high school he traveled, sang for tips, and lived in his car. He spent years at the University of Colorado studying everything from philosophy to microbiology, then worked as a computer specialist for Martin Marietta on the ground-support systems for the space shuttle.

Acting came later. In 1990 David Lynch cast him as the Man from Another Place in Twin Peaks—the red-suited figure who speaks in reverse and dances in the Black Lodge. He returned for Fire Walk with Me and later played Samson in the HBO series Carnivàle. He has said he sometimes saw people tremble in public after the Twin Peaks episodes. He retired from acting around 2014.

A Denver kid born on the night when the dead are supposed to walk, who spent his career playing the kind of characters who seem to have just stepped out of a dream. The mountains were already strange. He just made the strangeness speak backward.

Sources: Wikipedia · IMDb biography

Halloween in Denver has been 79 degrees, 7 degrees, and occasionally under a few inches of snow

2019 · Denver

The date holds a record high of 79°F (1950 and 2016), a record low of 7°F (2019), and its snowiest total of 3.4 inches (1989).

Denver has never quite decided what costume October 31 is supposed to wear. In 1950 the high reached 79°F as part of a warm stretch that also set records on the 29th and 30th. 2016 matched the 79. In 2019 the low dropped to 7°F. The previous record low for the date was 10°F in 1991.

Snow has shown up, but not as often as the lore claims. The snowiest October 31 on the books is 3.4 inches in 1989; a Halloween storm that year put 3 to 6 inches on the metro area and more in the foothills. In 1889 the first snow of the season totaled 14 inches over three days, with 5 inches on the 31st. Most years the kids can still see their shoes.

The costume that works at 79 does not work at 7. Denver has been making that point since before there were plastic pumpkins. Trick-or-treaters have always had to check the forecast before they decide how much fabric is too much fabric.

Sources: Extreme Weather Watch · National Weather Service Denver / Boulder records · Thornton Weather history